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CRIMES  OF  TEE  CIYIL  ¥AE, 


AND 


CURSE  OF  THE  FUNDING  SYSTEM. 


BY  HENRY  CLAY  DEAN, 


BALTIMORE: 

PRINTED    FOR    THE    PUBLISHER,  BY    J.   WESLEY    SMITH    &    BRO. 

1869. 


DEDICATION. 

To  the  brave  men,  who,  unmoved  by  the  violence  of  party;  unseduced  by  the 
temptations  of  wealth,  and  unawed  by  the  cruelty  of  war,  defended  the  priceless 
treasures  of  Constitutional  Liberty;  endured  banishment,  tortures,  and  death, 
rather  than  surrender  their  birthright,  transmitted  by  the  Fathers  of  1776— 

To  those  upright  soldiers,  who,  through  five  years  of  carnage,  corruption, 
plunder,  rapine,  and  desolation,  preserved  their  hands  unstained  with  innocent 
blood,  their  souls  unpolluted  with  plunder,  and  maintained  their  manhood  in 
violate— 

To  the  laboring  poor,  whose  subsistence  is  devoured  by  the  combinations  of 
Monopoly,  Bankruptcy,  Usury,  Extortion,  Standing  Armies,  Tax-gatherers  and 
Usurpation— 

To  the  immortal  dead,  who  surrendered  their  lives  in  defence  of  the  honor  and 
safety  of  their  homes,  and  poured  out  their  blood  in  rich  libations  to  the  God  of 
Liberty— is  this  book  dedicated  by 

THE  AUTHOR. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1868,  by 

WILLIAM  T.  SMITHSON, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Maryland, 


Stereotyped  by 
UVAN  &  IlICKETTS. 


PUBLISHEB'S  PEEFACE. 


"  THE  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR  AND  CURSE  OF  THE  FUNDING 
SYSTEM,"  which  is  now  presented  to  the  American  people,  is  a 
most  remarkable  book.  It  is  a  plain  rehearsal  of  thrilling  inci 
dents  which  have  occurred  in  this  country  within  the  past  few 
years ;  it  is  a  record  of  some  of  the  basest  crimes  ever  inflicted 
upon  man  by  his  fellow ;  it  graphically  depicts  many  heart 
rending  outrages  perpetrated  upon  humanity,  in  the  name  of  lib 
erty,  by  the  unbridled  passions  of  a  fanatical  despotism ;  it  is 
a  faithful  chronicle  of  passing  events  and  contemplates  the  char 
acter  of  men  as  photographed  by  themselves  in  the  sun-light  of 
heaven  —  it  views  things  as  they  really  exist  —  fairly,  honestly 
and  openly ;  it  withdraws  the  veil  of  mystery  which  conceals 
the  hideous  form  of  a  ruined  government  and  an  oppressed  peo 
ple. 

History  is  made  to  repeat  itself,  although  upon  a  grander  scale 
than  the  world  ever  before  contemplated.  Every  page  has  been 
subjected  to  an  unscrupulous  inquisition ;  facts  and  figures  are 
made  to  speak  the  untrammelled  truth,  and  the  entire  testimony 
is  unquestionable.  The  style  is  terse  and  the  diction  uncom 
promising,  and  every  sentence  is  clothed  in  a  strong  lucid  lan 
guage  which  has  the  impress  of  the  masterly  hand  and  spirit 
of  the  distinguished  author. 

The  work  is  gotten  up  in  a  plain,  neat  form,  sufficiently  cheap 
to  be  in  reach  of  the  general  reader ;  typographical  errors  have 
been  avoided  as  far  as  possible,  and  we  trust  it  will  find  its  way 
to  the  offices,  shops  and  firesides  of  the  great  masses  of  the  labor 
ing  and  over-taxed  people  of  the  United  States.  It  is  the  cham 
pion  of  truth  and  justice,  and  we  send  it  forth  on  its  mission, 
with  full  confidence  in  its  power,  to  defend  the  right  and  maintain 
its  principles. 

WM.  T.  SMITHSON,  Publisher. 


21G053 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Crimes  of  the  Civil  War  and  Curse  of  the  Funding  System  —  Reasons  for  the 

Publication  of  this  Book — 1st,  General  —  2d,  Pers onal . .  . , 1 

BOOK   FIKST. 

OF  THE  GRIMES  AGAINST  LIBERTY. 
CHAPTER  i. 

Destruction  of  Self- Government 25 

CHAPTER  II. 
Destruction  of  Civilization  by  Mongrelism 29 

CHAPTER  III. 
Invasion  of  Personal  Rights 34 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Violation  of  the  Rights  of  the  States  by  the  Federal  Government 41 

CHAPTER  V. 
Instituting  Retrospective  Test  Oaths  to  Destroy  the  Freedom  of  the  Elective 

Franchise , 50 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Destruction  of  Fair  and  Free  Elections  , . . .    64 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Disintegration  of  Congress 69 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  Duress  of  Congress.... 72 

CHAPTER  IX. 
The  Character  of  Congress  that  Robs  us  of  Liberty .., 75 

CHAPTER  X. 
The  Corruption  of  Congress  in  Creating  the  Debt 80 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Driving  the  Poor  into  the  Meshes  of  the  Flesh  Dealers  and  Blood  Market 96 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Violation  of  the  Laws  of  Nation  s  106 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Torture,  Cruelty,  and  Outrage 120 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Overthrow  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 142 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Degradation  of  the  Judiciary , 145 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  New  Nation 15J 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Infidelity  of  the  Clergy 175 

BOOK   SECOND. 
OF  THE  CRIMES  AGAINST  LABOR. 

CHAPTER  I. 

The  Conspiracy  of  the  Treasury  Department.... , 184 

CHAPTER  II. 
The  Manner  in  which  the  Loan  was  Obtained 189 


VI  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 
CHAPTER  III. 

The  War  Debt  is  not  a  Just  Debt 201 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  War  Debt  is  Unconstitutional.... 206 

CHAPTER  V. 

The  War  Debt  is  a  Breach  of  Trust ....  212 

CHAPTER  VI. 

We  are  Unable  to  Pay  this  Debt 214 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Constitutional  Amendments  cannot  Enforce  the  Payment  of  such  a  Debt 222 

CHAPTER  VIII, 

No  one  Generation  can  Bind  its  Successors  to  Pay  its  Debts  226 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Duty  of  the  Friends  of  Peace  to  Repudiate  War  Debts , 232 

CHAPTER  X. 

A  Plan  for  the  Payment  of  the  Debt 238 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Correspondence  between  the  Author  and  Horace  Greeley , 242 

CHAPTER  XII. 

The  Sacred  Debt 254 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Repudiation  the  last  Refuge  of  Profligacy 261 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
The  Character  of  the  Loan  which  Constitutes  the  Debt 269 

BOOK    THIRD. 

OF  THE  CRIMES  OF  THE  FUNDING  SYSTEM. 

CHAPTER  I. 

Usury...  275 

CHAPTER  II. 
Curse  oi  the  Funding  System 321 

CHAPTER  III. 
Debt  is  Slavery 328 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Bondholders  and  Bondmen , 332 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Funding  System  Destroys  a  Stable  Currency 339 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Funding  System  will  Concentrate  the  Landed  Estates  of  the  Country....  344 

CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Funding  System  Creates  Distrust  between  Capital  and  Labor 317 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  Sectional  Character  of  the  Funding  System .  « 351 

BOOK    FOURTH. 
OF  THE  CRIMES  OF  THE  BANKING  SYSTEM. 

CHAPTER  I. 

Mr.  Jefferson's  Objections  to  National  Banks 366 

CHAPTER  II. 

National  Banks  Unnecessary 374 

CHAPTER  III. 

No  Banking  System  can  be  made  Secure  378 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  First  Great  Crime  of  the  Chase  Banking  System 383 


CONTENTS.  Vli 

PAGE. 

CHAPTER  V. 

The  Second  Great  Crime  of  Chase's  Banking  System 386 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Third  Great  Crime  of  Chase's  Banking  System 391 

CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Expiring  Crime  of  Chase's  Banking  System 405 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

John  Law  and  Chase,  with  their  Respective  Systems  Compared 412 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Squandering  the  Public  Lands  the  Basis  of  Stock- Gambling 420 

CHAPTER  X. 
French  Assignats  and  National  Bank  Notes. 424 

BOOK   FIFTH. 

OF  THE  CRIMES  OF  THE  TARIFF. 

CHAPTER  I. 

Unhealthy  Condition  of  the  Public  Mind  in  Regard  to  Public  Assistance 430 

CHAPTER  II. 
Prevailing  Ignorance  of  the  Nature  of  Tariffs ,436 

CHAPTER  III. 
Devices  to  Obstruct  Trade 441 

CHAPTER  IV. 
No  one  Nation  can  Produce  Everything 445 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  two  Principles  in  Favor  of  a  Protective  Tariff  Contradicted  each  Other. . . .  447 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Tariff  rests  upon  Endless  Contradiction 450 

CHAPTER  VII. 

How  Protective  Tariffs  make  Goods  Cheap 457 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Protective  Tariffs  are  in  Conflict  with  the  Genius  of  our  Government ,  460 

CHAPTER  IX. 
High  Tariffs  Beget  Smuggling 465 

CHAPTER  X. 
High  Revenue  Tariffs  Unjust 468 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Villainies  of  the  Tariff. 477 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Character  of  Manufacturers , 481 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Curse  of  Manufacturing  Monopolies 487 

BOOK    SIXTH. 

OF  THE  CRIMES  OF  DESPOTISM. 
CHAPTER  I. 

The  Curse  of  the  Debt  Greater  than  the  Debt  Itself 493 

CHAPTER  II. 
The  Tax-Gatherer A 499 

CHAPTER  III. 
TheSpies..., 507 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Military  Usurpers 509 


REASONS  FOE  THE  PUBLICATION  OF 
THIS  WOEK. 

IST.     GENERAL. 

THE  truth  needs  neither  eulogy  nor  apology,  whilst  the  most 
extravagant  praises  and  pretensions  are  powerless  to  shield  false 
hood  from  exposure.  * 

A  review  of  the  unfortunate  condition  of  the  country  presents 
but  little  to  captivate  the  reader  and  even  less  to  stimulate  the 
writer  to  a  style  which  may  entertain  the  mind  which  does  not  at 
the  same  time  mantle  the  soul  with  unutterable  shame. 

Reckless  tyrants  have  trampled  down  the  rights  and  manhood 
of  the  people  together,  and  the  poor  privilege  of  complaint  con 
ceded  to  the  dying  culprit  and  not  denied  to  the  rich  man  in  hell, 

prohibited  in  one-half  of  the  United  States. 

Oar  Government  is  in  nothing  uniform  except  its  contempt  of 
law,  and  powerful  only  for  the  oppression  of  the  people. 

Every  officer  seems  »to  contemplate  his  office  as  an  engine  of 
destruction  in  which  he  is  engaged  to  work  the  ruin  of  the  partic 
ular  department  of  government  entrusted  to  his  care. 

The  Postmaster  General  for  the  last  five  years  has  been  violat 
ing  the  mails. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  has  been  squandering  the  public 
wealth. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  has  been  enfeebling  our  Naval 
po^yer. 

The  Secretary  of  War,  all  crimsoned  with  innocent  blood,  is 
employing  the  army  for  the  destruction  of  the  country. 
1 


2  GENERAL    REASONS   FOB   PUBLICATION. 

The  Secretary  of  State  has  been  subverting  constitutional  law, 
and  disgracing  our  form  of  government  at  home  and  abroad. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Interior  has  been  conniving  with  public 
jobbers  to  defraud  the  government  of  its  most  valuable  lands. 

The  Attorney  General  is  gravely  burlesquing  nonsense  itself  by 
denning  the  Constitutional  construction  of  unconstitutional  laws, 
and  is  in  conspiracy  with  Military  Commissions  to  murder  inno 
cent  women. 

The  President  is  administering  the  government  through  Mili 
tary  Satraps  in  a  manner  unknown  to  Eepublican  systems  and 
disgraceful  to  despotisms  which  regard  the  character  of  those  en 
trusted  with  power.  We  now  witness  ,among  our  kindred  the 
debasement  of  a  civilized  people  who  are  forced  to  submit  to  the 
insult  and  domination  of  barbarian  negroes  and  foreign  vagabonds. 

The  Courts  of  the  country  are  infamously  corrupt. 

The  State  Legislatures  and  Congress  are  flagrantly  accessible  to 
bribes,  which  have  become  the  only  tangible  basis  of  special  and 
an  essential  necessity  in  general  legislation. 

The  people  of  the  late  Confederate  States,  after  encountering 
the  terrible  vicissitudes  of  war,  were  overtaken  by  a  famine  which 
inflicted  frightful  forms  of  starvation,  and  are  now  overrun  and 
robbed  by  predatory  invasions,  and  endangered  by  the  insurrec 
tion  of  domestic  savages  incited  by  foreign  incendiaries. 

Each  step  of  advancing  usurpation  upon  the  part  of  these 
tyrants  has  been  met  by  a  receding  cowardice  upon  the  part  of  the 
people,  which  has  yielded  to  its  behests. 

Capital  has  availed  itself  of  the  general  distress  to  combine  its 
powers  to  oppress  labour ;  labour  has  conceded  and  begged  in  the 
vain  hope  of  appeasing  capital,  until  Banks,  Tariffs  and  Usury, 
the  three  great  criminals  of  all  governments,  are  now  employed 
by  the  funded  system  to  create  revenues,  keep  up  military  estab 
lishments  and  enslave  the  people. 

This  enquiry  into  the  causes  and  remedy  of  the  condition  of  the 


GENERAL   REASONS   FOR   PUBLICATION. 

country  is  prepared  for  the  plain  thinking  people,  who  determine 
to  be  free  from  the  dangerous  errors  of  demagogues  and  the  over 
shadowing  power  of  capital. 

While  a  people  should  not  be  insensible  to  the  glory,  grandeur, 
and  power  of  a  good  government,  and  should  duly  award  its  just 
meed  to  courage,  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  there  can  be  no 
glory  won  by  self-destruction ;  that  civil  wars  should  find  110  last 
ing  place  in  our  records;  that  magnanimity  to  a  fallen  victim 
who  has  proven  his  courage  on  the  battle  field,  should  consign  to 
oblivion  his  faults.  Upon  the  other  hand,  the  thief,  robber, 
murderer  or  incendiary  who,  loaded  down  with  the  plunder  of 
defenceless  families  and  leaving  a  desert  waste  in  his  bloody  trail, 
fled  before  avenging  armies,  should  be  held  up  to  mankind  on 
the  gibbet  of  history  to  warn  others  who  have  started  upon  the 
mistaken  road  to  glory,  not  to  strew  their  pathway  with  the  relics 
of  virtue  and  prosperity,  nor  pave  their  line  of  march  with 
human  skulls. 

The  people  yet,  have  it  within  their  power  to  restore  their  free 
dom,  retrieve  their  lost  character,  though  unable  to  bring  back 
the  dead,  or  efface  those  terrible  scars  inflicted  upon  the  violated 
person  of  liberty  in  her  contests  with  arbitrary  power.  The 
people  can  no  longer  look  for  safety  in  mercenary  party  organiza 
tions,  or  rely  for  relief  upon  demagogues.  The  freemen  of  Amer 
ica  must  learn  to  think  for  themselves.  These  following  questions 
must  be  searchingly  put  to  the  people : 

I.  By  what  right  can  any  generation  contract  to  enslave  suc 
cessive  generations,  and  mortgage  the  labor  of  future  centuries  to 
pay  the  debt  created  to  satiate  hate  and  aggrandize  a  lawless  cupid 
ity? 

II.  Can  any  government  justly  levy  a  tax  upon  the  labor  of 
the  country  to  support  and  increase  its  untaxed  capital,  and  en 
slave  industry  to  speculation  ? 

III.  By  what  earthly  power  can  such  a  claim  be  enforced  upon 


4  GENERAL   REASONS   FOR  PUBLICATION. 

a  people  who  are  aroused  to  a  sense  of  its  injustice,  and  shrink 
with  horror  from  the  recollection  of  the  bloody  crimes  which  en- 
tailed  it  upon  us  ? 

IV.  Can  any  government  retain  its  freedom  and  continue  sub 
ject  to  subsidies  more  than  equivalent  to  ordinary  rents,  which  are 
levied  for  the  benefit  of  a  privileged  class  upon  the  labouring  and 
agricultural  classes,  making  the  distinction  between  the  rich  and 
the  poor  clearly  marked  and  indelibly  drawn  ? 

Y.  Is  it  profitable,  is  it  desirable,  nay,  is  it  possible,  to  over 
throw  our  present  system  of  popular  government  and  substitute 
for  it  an  arbitrary  government,  or  a  monied  aristocracy  or  limited 
monarchy,  for  the  enforcement  of  a  debt  which  has  been  contrac 
ted  for  the  most  part  without  the  authority  of  law  ? 

VI.  Will  the  people  of  this  country  give  organic  guarantees 
for  the  payment  of  a  debt  due  to  citizens  of  this  and  other  coun 
tries,  the  payment  of  which  is  subject  to  the  action  of  the  courts, 
simply  to  avoid  the  faithful  interpretation  of  the  law  by  judicial 
tribunals  to  which  every  other  claim  is  legally  subjected? 

VII.  Is  it  possible  for  any  popular  government,  in  violation 
of  all  historical  precedent,  to  long  continue  the  victim  of  this  un 
just  and  arbitrary  power,  administered  by  a  few  through  combi 
nations  of  force,  fraud  and  fanaticism  ? 

VIII.  If  any  future  Congress  should  refuse  to  make  appro 
priations  for  the  liquidation  of  such  debt,  or  for  the  payment  of 
standing  armies  to  enforce  it,  how  then  could  constitutional  guar 
antees  protect  capital  from  taxation,  or  make  labor  support  idle 
ness  in  her  exorbitant  demands  ? 

IX.  Were  the  powers  which  created  this  debt  legally  elected 
by  free  and  fair  elections  ? 

X.  Were  the  Legislative  bodies  which  made  the  appropriations 
legally  constituted  ? 

XI.  In  what  manner,  for  what  purposes  and  by  what  author 
ity  was  the  money  spent  which  had  been  thus  appropriated  ? 


GENERAL   REASONS   FOR  PUBLICATION.  5 

XII.  What  must  be  the  relative  condition  of  capital  and  labor 
under  the  direction  and  control  of  the  funding  system  ? 

XIII.  By  what  authority  and  under  what  pretense  was  the 
present  compound  system  of  fraudulent  Banking  —  the  illicit  off 
spring  of  Financial  debauchery,  imposed  upon  the  country  ? 

XIV.  Why  are  the  systems  of  duties,  excises  and  direct  taxes 
levied  for  the  purpose  of  oppressing  the  poor  and  aggrandizing, 
the  rich,  to  create  a  hateful  monied  Oligarchy  in  the  land  ? 

XV.  Why  have  the  resources  of  the  country,  the  business  of 
the  people,  the  harmony  of  society,  and  the  hopes  of  civilization 
and  Christianity  been  swept  from  the  land  ? 

XVI.  What  shall  be  done  to  restore  our  lost  liberties  ? 

All  of  these  questions  are  now  upon  us.  They  are  awaiting 
that  careful  canvass  which  ultimately  overtakes  every  subject 
among  thinking  people  in  an  enlightened  age. 

The  issue  may  be  protracted  but  cannot  be  doubtful.  God  and 
justice  are  upon  the  side  of  the  good  and  just. 

Intellect  will  struggle  with  intellect,  and  cultivated  reason  will 
reassert  her  dominion  over  King  Mob  and  his  disgusting  retinue 
of  drunken  and  debauched  demagogues,  with  the  multitude  of 
infuriated  rabble,  drunk  with  blood  and  rioting  in  crime.  Socie 
ty  will  make  her  requisitions  upon  her  Jeffersons  and  Franklins, 
her  Miltons  and  Lockes,  to  reconstruct  in  justice  the  great  super 
structure  of  liberty  which  has  been  laid  in  ashes  by  incendiary  fires, 
and  determine  questions  which  have  been  raised  by  the  passionate 
fanatics  and  mercenary  tricksters  who  ascribe  to  government  no 
higher  object  than  to  furnish  support  to  malignant  partizans,  and 
aspire  to  no  higher  position  for  themselves  than  to  gather  up  the 
fly-blown  offal  from  the  table  of  political  power,  and  boldly  avow 
no  other  object  in  political  contests  than  the  acquisition  of  political 
ascendency. 

In  this  contest  between  idle  capital  and  active  labor,  each  of  the 
contestants  will  summon  all  of  their  ancient  allies  to  their  support. 


6  GENERAL   REASONS   FOR    PUBLICATION. 

Capital  will  ardently  espouse  the  cause  of  standing  armies,  strong 
governments,  the  union  of  Church  and  State,  the  growth  of  mo 
nopolies,  the  funding  system  and  arbitrary  power. 

Upon  the  other  hand,  labor  has  no  allies  but  the  justice  of  her 
cause,  the  intelligence  of  her  people  and  the  strong  arm  of  self 
defence. 

It  is  refreshing  to  turn  the  eye  backward  through  the  dim  track 
of  centuries,  and  behold  the  manly  self-respect  of  our  hardy  an 
cestors  who  suffered  not  majesty  itself  to  trifle  with  their  liberties 
or  the  servants  of  the  king  to  trample  upon  the  privacy  of  his 
subjects. 

The  heavens  are  darkened  with  the  lowering  clouds  of  a  finan 
cial  hurricane  which  no  power  can  arrest. 

When  the  storm  comes  in  its  terrible  desolation,  it  will  sweep 
down  every  thing  before  it. 

Standing  armies  cannot  enforce  the  obligations  of  such  a  debt, 
although  they  may  increase  it,  and  thereby  hasten  repudiation ; 
which  they  are  now  doing  by  the  establishment  of  military  gov 
ernment  in  the  South,  and  which  they  are  proposing  in  every  part 
of  the  country. 

Constitutional  amendments  cannot  enforce  the  debt.  When 
adopted  they  will  be  futile  in  the  hands  of  revolutionists,  who 
have  set  the  example  of  repudiating  constitutions  without  amend 
ments,  and  all  other  obligations.  We  most  respectfully  commit 
the  public  debt  to  time,  which  outlaws  all  claims  by  limitation. 

The  debt  cannot  reach  the  next  generation,  and  if  it  does  it  will 
not  be  bound  by  the  foolish  contracts  of  this,  and  will  do  well  if 
it  meets  its  own  obligations. 

We  wish  bondholders  no  worse  luck  than  to  fall  into  the  hands 
of  negroes,  who  want  cheap  food  and  raiment,  and  will  vote  down 
tariffs  and  taxes.  Then  what  becomes  of  the  public  debt  ? 

Leaving  all  these  questions  to  time,  the  arbiter  of  events,  cast 
your  eyes  to  the  coming  storm. 


GENERAL   REASONS   FOR   PUBLICATION.  7 

We  have  a  high  duty  to  perform,  which  is  to  restore  the  Consti 
tutional  obligations  of  the  Government,  to  secure  the  rights  of  the 
States  and  the  liberties  of  the  people.  And  if  villainous  capital 
or  overbearing  monopoly  stands  in  the  way,  it  will  not  impede  our 
progress  or  arrest  our  purpose.  It  were  better  that  every  man  in 
America  were  bankrupt,  than  that  we  be  crushed  by  perpetual 
debt. 

The  character  of  the  funding  system  has  been  examined  and 
exposed  because,  since  the  commencement  of  the  war  the  triple 
swindle  of  the  banking  system  has  transferred  at  least  $300,000,- 
000  of  the  property  and  labor  of  the  poor  to  the  coffers  of  the 
rich. 

1.  By  inflating  the  currency  from  1862  to  1864,  from  par  to 
$2  89  100  premium,  advancing  the  price  of  every  article  used  by 
the  poor  in  this  ratio,  and  enhancing  the  value  to  the  extent  of 
the  hoarded  money  in  the  coffers  of  the  rich. 

2.  Securing  this  enhanced  value  to  the  rich  by  funding  at  par 
the  inflated  paper  to  be  paid  in  gold  under  pretense  of  reducing 
the  volume  of  paper  money. 

3.  When  the  funding  was  secured,  then  renewing  the  inflation 
through  the  National  Banks,  and  giving  to  corporations  a  double 
interest  —  interest  on  the  bonds  and  discount  upon  the  bank  notes, 
which  are  untaxed  and  depreciating.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     ^  . 

The  tariff,  under  pretext  of  protecting  manufactures,  has  been 
an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  rich  to  oppress  the  poor.  It  is  a 
decree  passed  to  limit  the  amount  and  quality  of  the  food  and 
raiment  of  the  consumer,  for  the  benefit  of  the  producer.  The 
extent  and  atrocity  of  our  taxation  defies  comment.  It  has  placed 
over  us  an  army  of  spies,  detectives,  contractors,  general  and  sub 
ordinate  officers,  who  meet  us  at  every  corner  of  the  street,  and  in 
every  avenue  of  business. 

Placing  a  money-grabber  between  the  mouths  of  the  poor  and 
the  butcher  shop  —  a  stamp  between  the  medicine  and  your  dying 


8  GENERAL   REASONS   FOR   PUBLICATION. 

child  —  a  tariff  between  your  shivering  body  and  the  clothing- 
store  —  between  the  muslin  shroud  and  the  corpse  of  your  \vife. 

We  may  be  charged  with  a  purpose  to  repudiate  this  debt. 
Upon  this  subject  I  have  but  a  few  words — - 

The  collection  of  this  debt  is  a  question  for  the  determination 
of  the  courts.  I  shall  not,  therefore,  more  than  refer  it  to  those 
courts.  Are  we  bound  for  this  debt  ?  If  so,  how  and  by  what 
law? 

We  are  not  bound  by  the  Constitution  to  pay  it;  because  it  was 
contracted  in  a  war  to  overthrow  the  Constitution  and  destroy  the 
system  of  government  under  it. 

We  are  not  bound  by  the  theory  of  our  Government  to  pay  it, 
because  the  debt  was  contracted  in  the  destruction  of  the  Ameri 
can  theory  of  government. 

We  are  not  bound  by  the  laws  of  civilized  warfare  to  pay  it ; 
because  these  laws,  as  understood  by  Americans  and  laid  down  by 
our  treaty  with  Mexico,  were  violated  at  every  step  of  the  war 
from  its  inception  to  its  conclusion. 

We  are  not  bound  in  justice  to  pay  this  debt,  for  we  have  re 
ceived  nothing  in  return  for  it.  Not  only  no  equivalent,  but  it 
has  been  contracted  in  the  destruction  of  everything  held  sacred 
in  property,  obligation  and  security.  There  has  been  no  qnid  pro 
quo.  All  this  is  outside  of  the  consideration  of  the  violence, 
fraud,  opposition  and  cheats  employed  in  the  contraction  of  the 
debt. 

We  are  not  bound  in  honor  to  pay  this  debt.  It  was  contrac 
ted  without  our  consent. 

The  Congress  was  elected  under  the  combinations  of  force,  fraud 
and  corruptions ;  legislated  under  the  duress  imposed  by  the  bay 
onets  held  by  arbitrary  power  over  Congress  and  Legislatures ;  and 
the  Congress  thus  assuming  to  legislate  for  the  country  had  no 
constitutional  existence. 

Then  there  is  the  court  of  last  resort,  before  whom  all  these 


GENERAL   REASONS    FOR   PUBLICATION.  9 

questions  are  to  be  hereafter  tried  —  the  popular  will.  I  need  not 
predict  the  result  of  the  issue.  Such  cases  have  been  tried  before 
the  same  tribunal. 

No  such  debt  ever  has  been  paid ;  no  such  debt  can  be  paid ; 
no  such  debt  ought  to  be  paid ;  no  such  debt  will  be  paid. 

The  Jewish  year  of  jubilee  was  a  year  of  repudiation,  divinely 
appointed  for  that  purpose. 

The  authors  of  our  system,  the  purest  lights  in  the  constella 
tions  of  Liberty,  never  redeemed  their  Continental  money. 

But,  overlooking  the  other  repudiations  of  the  world,  the  party 
in  power  is  a  party  of  repudiation. 

It  repudiated  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  substituting 
in  its  stead  edicts,  military  commissions  and  proclamations. 

It  repudiated,  by  positive  legislation,  the  debts  due  to  innocent 
third  persons,  corporations  and  trusts  in  the  Southern  States. 

It  repudiated  the  obligations  of  servitude,  as  established  by 
law,  between  the  blacks  and  whites. 

The  General  Government  is  now  officially  engaged  in  the  lowest 
and  most  dishonorable  form  of  repudiation,  by  shaving  its  own 
paper  in  the  money  used.  The  gold  is  the  only  Constitutional 
form  of  money  for  that  purpose ;  and  after  carrying  on  a  legisla 
tion  which  is  resolvable  into  no  other  general  principle  than  that 
of  repudiation,  the  ballot-box,  never  in  love  with  monopolies,  will 
master  repudiation. 

The  bondholders  are  provoking  repudiation. 

First  —  By  refusing  to  submit  their  bonds  to  taxation. 

Second  —  By  making  their  bonds  an .  instrument  of  double 
monopoly,  by  using  them  as  the  capital  in  banking  as  well  as 
drawing  interest  upon  their  face. 

Repudiation  offers  the  only  hope  of  relief  to  the  country. 

First  —  It  takes  the  corrupting  influence  of  money  out  of  legis 
lation. 

Second  —  It  rids  the  country  of  the  whole  plague  and  curse  of 


10  GENERAL   REASONS   FOR   PUBLICATION. 

assessors'  clerks,  collectors,  spies,  pimps,  stamps,  tariff,  excises  and 
excisemen  that  now  enslave  us. 

It  equalizes  the  general  burdens  of  the  war.  The  poor  men 
gave  their  lives  in  battle.  This  demands  that  the  rich,  who  grew 
fat  on  blood,  shall  surrender  the  plunder  of  war,  to  save  the  poor 
who  fought  in  battle  from  being  further  ground  by  direct  and  in 
direct  taxation. 

Repudiation  is  a  fitting  conclusion  to  a  war  which  has  destroyed 
every  thing,  and  now  justly  concludes  by  destroying  the  destroyer. 

I  urge  no  repudiation ;  I  ask  no  action,  This  condition  of 
things  is  slowly  but  surely  coming,  like  the  cloud  about  the  size 
of  a  man's  hand.  It  is  gathering  in  the  West  —  the  people  are 
pinched  for  money. 

This  book  has  been  written  with  a  view  to  public  relief  and  to 
inspire  the  laboring  people  with  courage  to  defend  their  rights  by 
the  adoption  of  some  plan  in  harmony  with  those  great  laws  of 
nature  and  of  God,  which  are  as  unchangeable  as  his  Being.  The 
laws  of  intelligence,  which  govern  the  intercourse  and  determine 
the  relative  position  of  rational  creatures  in  society ;  the  laws  of 
superiority,  which  inspire  command,  and  of  inferiority,  which 
yield  obedience;  the  laws  of  commerce,  which  supply  and  stimu 
late  trade ;  the  laws  of  finance,  which  require  that  the  money  of 
the  country  shall  have  free  circulation  from  the  centres  to  the  far 
thest  extremities  of  business,  mutually  strengthening  instead  of 
devouring  and  destroying  each  other ;  the  laws  of  Capital  and 
Labor,  as  they  reciprocally  help  each  other  in  the  development  of 
the  wealth  and  power  of  the  country,  and  combine  to  augment 
the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  the  people.  These  immutable 
laws  are  coeval  and  must  be  coexistent  with  civilized  society,  and 
no  mere  popular  clamor  or  numerical  test  of  a  frenzied  multitude, 
under  the  fraudulent  guidance  of  unscrupulous  leaders,  can  change 
one  iota  of  their  value  or  diminish  a  particle  of  their  strength. 

We  must  now  meet  the  great  issues  involved  in  the  terrible 


PERSONAL   REASONS   FOR  PUBLICATION.  11 

struggle  for  the  supremacy  of  law  over  anarchy,  of  republican 
government  over  arbitrary  power. 

Let  us  then  meet  them  as  true  men  meet  an  unscrupulous  ene 
my.     Let  us  hasten  to  the  conflict,  for  conflict  will  give  us  victory. 


2o.    PERSONAL. 

To  the  American  People : 

I  have  a  personal  reason  for  the  publication  of  this  book.  I 
suffered  under  the  reign  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  which  was  a  vibration 
between  anarchy  and  despotism.  Why  arrested  ?  I  cannot  tell. 
Have  never  seen  anything  like  charges,  and  suppose  there  were 
none  in  such  form  as  would  be  recognized  in  any  court  of  justice 
under  the  sun ;  and  yet  I  am  quite  sure  there  was  a  cause  for  it, 
which  is  this :  /  am  a  Democrat ;  a  devoted  friend  of  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States;  a  sincere  lover  of  the  Government 
and  the  Union  of  the  States ;  am  anxious  for  a  reunion,  and  be 
lieve  it  the  right  and  duty  of  a  freeman,  in  a  calm,  candid  man 
ner,  to  discuss  in  a  temperate  spirit,  the  best  modes  of  effecting 
this  purpose.  I  have  dared  to  participate  in  these  discussions 
freely,  which  I  have  done  from  convictions  of  duty.  This  was  the 
cause  of  my  arrest.  For  months  previous,  I  thought  I  saw  the 
seed  of  contention  and  civil  war  scattered  in  every  neighborhood 
in  the  Upper  Mississippi  Valley.  Such  a  soil  seemed  prepared 
and  ready  to  receive  it,  just  such  a  soil  as  forces  up  noxious 
weeds  of  the  rankest  growth.  The  season  was  adapted  to  and 
beyond  all  description  fruitful  for  the  growth  of  just  such  plants 
as  the  stramonium,  the  poison  mushroom,  and  the  deadly  night 
shade.  Weak,  wicked  men  were  stirring  up  strife  as  a  daily  avo 
cation  ;  thirsting  for  blood ;  listening  with  a  morbid  anxiety  for 
the  news ;  retailing  with  insane  satisfaction  the  details  of  some 
murder,  some  heart-rending  catastrophe,  revolting  outrage  upon 


12  PERSONAL,   REASONS   FOR   PUBLICATION. 

female  purity,  or  savage  slaughter  of  innocent  children.  They 
had  learned  themselves  and  were  teaching  others  to  laugh  at  the 
conflagration  which  laid  cities  in  ashes.  They  felt  that  nothing 
had  been  well  done  where  the  black  visage  of  war  had  not  gone, 
or  the  track  of  the  bloody  foot  of  desolation  had  not  been  well 
imprinted.  Fury  seemed  to  have  become  a  virtue  among  those 
who  should  have  been  most  calm.  Violence  was  the  watchword 
of  those  whose  vocation  was  to  teach  meekness  as  a  law  of  life, 
and  love  as  the  only  preparation  for  the  world  to  come. 

Ministers  of  the  Gospel  of  Peace  were  teaching  such  lessons  of 
cruelty,  in  such  a  spirit  of  violence,  and  in  such  language  of  intol 
erant  malice,  as  made  the  ordinary  mind,  yet  retaining  self  con 
trol,  grow  sick.  Judges  of  Courts,  whose  duty  it  was  to  keep  the 
peace,  in  open  defiance  of  the  obligations  of  their  oaths  of  office, 
in  contempt  of  the  long  established  conservative  character  of  the 
honorable  profession  in  which  they  were  educated,  and  to  the  great 
scandal  of  their  ermine,  went  into  the  rural  districts  during  the 
current  session  of  their  Courts,  and  delivered  harangues,  appeal 
ing  to  the  basest  passions  of  human  nature,  encouraging  crimes 
most  obnoxious  to  the  laws  of  the  country,  and  indulging  in  lan 
guage  well  calculated  to  light  the  whole  land  in  a  blaze  of  furious, 
endless,  lawlessness  and  civil  war.  Conservative,  quiet,  law 
abiding  men  of  eminence  and  character  in  the  country,  requested 
me  by  urgent  letters  to  address  the  people,  and  assist  them  to 
avert  the  coming  evil  among  us.  With  reluctance  I  entered  upon 
the  unthankful  task,  and  commenced  an  humble  argument  to  the 
people,  urging  them  to  obey  the  laws,  honor  the  Government, 
recognize  the  existing  state  of  things,  and  above  all  to  preserve  the 
peace  inviolate.  This  I  did  in  an  earnest,  kind  feeling,  that  aston 
ished  even  the  Revolutionists,  and  left  them  vibrating  between 
personal  malice  and  silent  disappointment.  I  soon  learned,  some 
what  authoritatively,  in  their  own  choice  language,  that  I  "  would 
be  suppressed/'  my  "  career  would  be  shortened,"  &cv  &c.  In 


PERSONAL   REASONS   FOR   PUBLICATION.  13 

response  to  this  purpose,  partisan  radical  papers  began  to  teem 
with  epithets  opprobrious  and  scandalous,  stating  groundless,  ma 
licious  and  inflammatory  falsehoods,  personal  and  political.  To 
these  attacks  I  gave  no  attention,  but  still  pursued  the  quiet,  even 
tenor  of  my  way,  persuading  the  people  to  stand  firm  by  the  Con 
stitution,  to  obey  the  laws,  to  provoke  no  violence  and  be  guilty 
of  no  outbreak. 

Wherever  I  spoke  I  found  that  underneath  all  the  party  bit 
terness  and  strife,  which  was  but  momentary,  there  was  a  boiling 
flood  of  good  feeling,  as  pure  as  the  waters  that  gush  from  be 
neath  the  Alpine  mountains  of  perpetual  snow.  The  masses  of 
the  people  still  loved  each  other,  but  were  misled  until  their  pas 
sions  were  hot  as  the  burning  sand,«and  explosive  as  powder. 
When  I  spoke  of  renewing  old  associations,  reviving  Chris 
tian  fellowship,  cultivating  brotherly  love,  cheering  smiles  would 
play  upon  their  faces,  wild  huzzas  of  good  feeling  would  break 
forth  from  their  manly  lips,  and  tears  would  sometimes  drive 
each  other  down  their  sunburnt  cheeks  as  they  prayed  the  sweet 
spirit  of  friendship  to  return  ;  the  Angel  of  Mercy  to  banish  the 
Angel  of  Death ;  and  the  Genius  of  Christianity  to  again  assert 
her  supreme  sovereignty  over  our  society,  over  our  divided,  dis 
tracted,  and  well  nigh  ruined  country. 

Encouraged  by  the  feelings  of  the  people  responding  to  my 
own,  I  spoke.  Aroused  by  this  motive  alone,  I  addressed  the 
great  crowd  that  listened  to  me. 

This  is  my  only  offence,  clearly  and  elaborately  stated.  But 
all  this  availed  me  nothing  so  long  as  I  was  a  Democrat,  a  faith 
ful  supporter  of  the  Constitution,  and  an  ardent  lover  of  the 
Union,  and  believed  and  thought  that  the  integrity  of  the  one 
was  the  only  conservative  po\ver  of  the  other. 


14  PERSONAL   REASONS   FOR    PUBLICATION. 


THE   TIME,   THE   PLACE,  THE    MANNER   OF   MY   ARREST. 

I  was  on  my  way  from  Qulncy,  Illinois,  to  Keosauqua,  Iowa, 
to  attend  a  meeting  of  the  Democratic  party.  Mobocracy  had 
run  riot  in  Kcokuk  for  many  months  under  the  auspices  of  the 
officers  commanding  the  post,  and  having  in  charge  the  Medical 
Department.  I  had  to  pass  through  Keokuk  to  reach  the  cars. 
Before  I  landed  at  the  wharf,  I  learned  that  the  "  Gate  City," 
the  only  paper  published  in  Keokuk,  had  demanded  my  arrest. 
Nearly  every  Puritan  paper  in  the  State  had  joined  in  the  gen 
eral  howl.  The  tone  of  the  press  reminded  me  of  the  bulletins 
issued  in  the  dark  alleys  of  Paris,  or  the  hand-bills  posted  on  the 
front  of  the  buildings  early  on  each  morning,  containing  the  death 
warrant  of  some  intended  victim  of  assassination  in  the  most 
terrible  days  of  the  French  Revolution.  The  requisition  of  the 
paper  was  but  the  foreshadowing  of  the  intention  of  the  malig- 
nant  citizens  of  Keokuk.  All  the  details  of  the  arrest  are  not 
proper  for  the  public  eye. 

I  had  often  heard  an  old  Indian  describe  the  ceremony  of 
running  the  gauntlet  by  prisoners  of  war.  The  naked,  brawny, 
cowardly  savage  painted  his  cheeks  red  with  blood-root,  and 
blackened  his  teeth  with  soot  and  charcoal.  He  made  his  trem 
bling  victim  shrink  as  he  applied  the  excrutiating  lash  to  his 
uncovered  person.  An  old  backwoodsman,  now  no  more,  who 
knew  Simon  Girty  well,  once  told  me  how  that  monster  had  as 
sisted  the  Indians  to  burn  poor  Col.  Crawford  at  the  stake. 
Girty  would  laugh,  and  grin,  and  taunt  his  victim,  as  the  flames 
were  gathering  around  him.  He  would  then  again  break  out 
into  a  hollow,  fiendish  chuckle  when  the  blaze  was  shrieking 
with  horror  in  the  air.  The  perverted  culture  of  civilization 
contributed  its  force  to  add  to  the  brutal  barbarity  of  the  merci- 
les?  heathens.  In  my  own  arrest  I  had  the  most  vivid  picture 


PERSONAL    REASONS    FOE   PUBLICATION.  15 

of  just  such  men  leading  a  furious  body  of  a  thousand  persons 
in  a  mob. 

My  arrest  had  been  agreed  upon  as  soon  as  my  name  was  regis 
tered  at  the  Billings  House.  I  could  see  the  Puritans  and 
Roundheads  gathering  in  squads  of  four  or  five,  talking  in  a  low 
excited  whisper.  The  fiendish  smile  was  playing  on  their  cheek  ; 
the  self  satisfied  smirk  on  the  lip,  and  thirst  for  vengeance  was 
pictured  on  their  countenances.  These  small  gatherings  of  men 
embraced  the  shouting  Methodist  and  witch-burning  Puritan,  the 
Universalist  and  Unitarian,  with  every  intervening  class  of  Fa 
natics.  I  was  then  and  am  now  unconscious  of  having  ever 
wronged  or  justly  incurred  ,the  ill  will  of  any  human  being  in 
the  city,  from  any  cause  whatever.  I  called  to  see  Hon.  T.  W. 
Clagett  on  business,  and  whilst  sitting  upon  the  porch  with  the 
Judge,  I  saw  a  crowd  approaching  near  his  gate,  who  inquired 
for  me,  calling  out  my  name.  I  did  not,  of  course,  call  in  ques 
tion  their  authority,  for  these  reasons  : 

Fir stf  Every  soldier  is  under  a  most  solemn  oath;  a  very 
severe  penalty  to  obey  the  articles  of  war,  which  forbid  anything 
like  the  semblance  of  a  mob. 

Second,  Every  officer  is  held  responsible  for  the  discipline  and 
conduct  of  his  soldiers,  and  whenever  they  engage  in  a  mob,  the 
officers  are  either  corrupt  or  imbecile. 

Third,  A  young  man  of  the  name  of  Ball,  whilst  in  the  office 
of  the  Provost  Marshal,  informed  me,  with  the  grin  and  very 
much  the  tone  of  a  Sioux  Indian,  that  he  "  wanted  the  boys  to 
take  their  satisfaction  out  of  me,"  and  that  he  now  arrested- me 
in  due  form,  and  handed  me  over  to  the  Sergeant  of  the  Provost 
Guard.  I  have  made  this  fact  plain,  because  these  men,  having 
committed  an  atrocious  crime,  would  well  rid  themselves  of  it 
by  any  subterfuge. 

After  my  arrest,  I  was  placed  in  the  front  of  the  crowd,  with 
a  low-bred,  insolent  man,  who  commenced  asking  me  offensive 


16  PERSONAL  REASONS   FOE  PUBLICATION. 

questions,  of  which  I  of  course  took  no  notice.  After  hurrying 
me  through  several  streets,  at  length  a  hollow  square  was  formed, 
where  I  was  taunted,  threatened  and  insulted  for  a  full  half 
hour.  I  was  first  informed  that  death  was  entirely  too  mild  a 
punishment  to  be  administered  to  a  "  Copperhead,"  who,  in  the 
choice  language  of  their  newspaper,  was  foolhardy  and  demented 
enough  to  venture  through  Keokuk. 

The  soldiers  were  all  strangers  to  me,  and  were  led  on  and 
prompted  to  their  action  by  a  Puritan  clique  who  had  an  unset 
tled  account  with  me  for  some  very  candid  talk  about  the  year 
1860,  when  I  was  a  candidate  for  Elector  of  the  State  at  large 
on  the  Democratic  ticket,  headed  by  the  name  of  Judge  Douglas. 
These  benevolent  men  thought  Nature  at  fault,  that  she  had  not 
endowed  me  with  at  least  four  separate  and  distinct  lives,  that 
each  of  them  might  be  entirely  gratified  in  having  me  put  to 
death  in  his  own  choice  way.  On  the  outside  of  the  crowd  there 
stood  a  merchant  of  thin  visage,  sharp  nose,  red  head,  and  ex 
ceedingly  thin  lips,  who  cried  out  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  "  He 
ought  to  be  drowned,  seeing  the  Mississippi  so  close  at  hand," 
when  there  went  up  a  yell,  "drown  him"  "DROWN  HIM," 
"  DROWN  HIM."  Near  by  another  of  the  malignants  spoke 
up  and  said,  "  Drowning  was  entirely  too  easy  and  speedy  a  death 
for  a  Copperhead,"  and  cried  out,  " hang  him"  " HANG  HIM," 
"  HANG  HIM."  Still  another  commenced,  and  the  cry  went 
up  "  shoot  him,"  "  SHOOT  HIM,"  "  SHOOT  HIM." 

A  fourth,  with  the  murderous  laugh  of  a  Pawnee,  said  burn 
ing  would  better  measure  out  the  allotted  punishment,  —  length 
en  the  scene  of  enjoyment,  and  minister  more  thoroughly  to  the 
gratification  of  the  executioners.  This  gentleman  found  no 
response.  Every  manner  of  insult  and  opprobrious  epithet  was 
used  to  jeer,  mortify  and  offend. 

After  being  thus  brutally  treated,  I  addressed  the  crowd  for  a 
few  moments,  and  informed  them  that  I  had  been  sick  for  nearly 


PERSONAL   REASONS   FOR  PUBLICATION.  17 

a  week,  was  then  taking  medicine,  and  desired  a  place  to  be  at 
rest.  After  much  parleying,  whooping,  yelling  and  coarse  insult, 
I  was  marched  down  to  the  office  of  the  Provost  Marshal,  and 
there  commanded  by  this  young  man,  Ball,  to  strip  myself  stark 
naked,  which  I  had  to  do  in  the  presence  of  a  large  crowd,  and 
remaining  in  that  condition  for  fifteen  minutes,  whilst  my  clothes 
were  searched,  and  each  one  of  the  party  had  taken  his  full  lib 
erty  in  about  the  same  kind  of  jesting  that  had  occurred  in  the 
street,  except  that  it  was  coarser  and  baser  in  the  room.  I  told 
this  young  man,  Ball,  that  I  had  understood  that  he  was  an  offi 
cer,  educated  at  West  Point,  from  which  I  inferred  that  he  was 
a  gentleman.  He  informed  me,  however,  not  to  my  surprise, 
that  he  was  not  a  West  Pointer,  which  I  placed  to  the  lasting 
credit  of  that  institution.  After  I  had  been  allowed  to  put  on 
my  clothes,  my  carpet  sack  was  sent  for  to  the  hotel,  carefully 
searched,  and  my  private  letters  and  papers  read  aloud  in  the 
presence  of  the  crowd,  open  to  the  inspection  of  everybody. 

After  all  this  was  over,  Mr.  Ball  sent  some  one  of  the  crowd 
to  inform  the  soldiers  that  he  would  assure  them  that  I  would 
be  severely  dealt  with,  and  they  were  permitted  to  retire.  I  was 
soon  lodged  in  the  Guard  House,  where  there  was  neither  chair, 
stool,  table  nor  stand.  Sergeant  Newport  kindly  furnished  me 
a  cot.  One  filthy  towel  was  the  wiping  cloth  of  a  large  body  of 
men,  some  with  diseased,  sore  and  scrofulous  eyes.  I  cannot 
better  describe  the  place  than  I  have  done  in  a  brief  sketch  which 
I  wrote  whilst  there,  and  which  Sergeant  Newport,  in  the  pres 
ence  of  John  H.  Craig,  Esq.,  and  Judge  Trimble,  declared  was 
true  to  life,  and  I  take  here  great  pleasure  in  stating  that  Ser 
geant  Newport,  as  well  as  every  soldier  of  the  Provost  Guard, 
treated  me  with  civility,  courtesy  and  respect,  for  which  I  am 
grateful. 


18  PERSONAL   EEASONS   FOB  PUBLICATION. 


THE   GUARD    HOUSE. 

I  was  informed  upon  my  first  entrance  into  the  place,  that  the 
central  idea  of  a  military  prison  was  to  make  it  as  nearly  the 
very  essence  of  hell  as  was  possible.  In  this  they  made  a  capi 
tal  success.  The  room  was  about  sixteen  feet  wide  by  forty-five 
feet  long,  with  enough  taken  off  of  the  side  to  make  room  for  a 
flight  of  stairs.  In  this  room  there  were  fifty  men  lying  side  by 
side.  They  were  of  almost  every  conceivable  grade,  gathered 
from  every  rank  in  society,  and  charged  with  every  manner  of 
offence  known  to  the  laws  of  God  and  man.  Some  of  them,  even 
in  sickness,  lawless  and  ungovernable,  had  been  sent  in  from  the 
hospital,  breathing  the  deadly  malaria  of  all  the  diseases  generated 
by  the  vices  of  the  army.  The  stench  of  venereal  taint  issuing 
from  their  putrid  breath,  would  nauseate  the  stomach  of  the 
oldest  Bacchanalian.  Another  squad  that  contributed  to  the 
more  dense  population  of  this  semi-infernal  chamber,  which  was 
elevated  to  the  third  story  of  a  dilapidated  store-house  in  the 
rugged  suburbs  of  a  dilapidated  river  town,  was  a  squad  of  con 
valescent  soldiers  who  had  been  sent  up  for  mobbing  a  quiet 
country  gentleman  to  avenge  the  malice  of  a  drunken  Cyprian. 

In  this  place  there  were  bushwhackers  fresh  from  the  charcoal 
fields  of  the  guerrilla  bands  of  Missouri,  who  had  stood  like  hun 
gry  hyenas  over  the  dying  innocent  victims  of  their  rapacity  and 
lust.  On  the  floor  at  the  farther  end  of  the  room  lay  a  gang  of 
rowdies,  who  were  snatched  up  for  infesting  a  low  brothel  in  the 
purlieus  of  the  city.  Very  near  them  was  a  group  of  reckless 
Rounders,  reeking  with  drugged  liquors,  infuriated  with  madness, 
belching  forth  oaths,  and  howling  obscene  songs,  compared  with 
which  the  jovial  scenes  of  Billingsgate  and  Fish  Market  are  chaste 
and  modest.  This  body  of  ruffians  were  placed  for  safe  keeping 
in  the  Guard  House  until  the  whisky  had  died  out  on  their  brain, 
and  its  putrid  fumes  began  to  poison  the  atmosphere  for  a  full 


PERSONAL    REASONS    FOR   PUBLICATION.  19 

city  block  in  every  direction  around.  Intermingled  with  the 
others  were  deserters,  escaping  the  hardships  and  duties  of  the 
armies,  together  with  rebel  prisoners  arrested  on  their  way  back 
to  take  up  arms  against  the  Government.  These  two  classes  of 
gentlemen  were  holding  a  philosophical  argument,  discussing  the 
especial  merits  of  their  respective  armies.  There  were  here  con 
fined  men  who  had  committed  rape,  horse  thieves,  watch  thieves, 
murderers,  and  traitors,  in  a  common  nest  huddled  together.  To 
add  to  the  interest  of  this  society,  every  evening  the  Patrol  Guard 
would  gather  up  the  beastly  drunk  and  tumble  them  in. 

At  about  9  o'clock  at  night  the  roll  was  called,  and  those  most 
able-bodied  and  desperate  were  locked  in  chains,  two  together. 
Then  the  whole  crowd  would  break  out  in  one  long,  continued 
hideous  yell,  compared  with  which  the  howls  of  a  gang  of  half 
starved  prairie  wolves  is  musical  and  melodious.  To  add  to  the 
attractions  of  this  new  habitation,  tobacco  spittle,  the  expectora 
tion  of  lungs  half  rotten  with  Consumption,  the  contents  of 
Catarrh  nostrils,  with  the  spontaneous  relief  given  by  nature  to 
drunken  men,  were  indiscriminately  scattered  over  the  floor, 
whilst  every  stitch  of  clothes  was  literally  filled  with  vermin  • 
And  this  was  the  prison  into  which  a  free  American  citizen  was 
placed  for  daring  to  be  a  Democrat. 

For  fourteen  long  and  loathesome  dreary  days  and  nights,  fe 
verish  with  loss  of  sleep  and  gasping  for  breath,  I  was  confined 
in  this  nameless  place.  Sometimes  I  would  go  to  the  window 
for  a  draught  of  pure  air,  only  to  catch  the  flood  of  dust  that 
swept  through  the  streets,  and  was  breathed  into  my  nostrils 
until  my  lungs  became  so  suffused  that  I  could  scarcely  inhale  or 
exhale  the  air,  and  my  tongue  became  so  enlarged  at  the  palate 
that  I  could  with  difficulty  swallow  my  food.  The  prisoners  ate 
after  the  soldier,  and  complained  very  much  of  their  food.  I  re 
ceived  my  meals  regularly  from  Mrs.  Reddington,  a  kind-hearted 
Democratic  lady  of  great  intelligence  and  worth,  whom  even 
mobs  could  not  deter  from  doing  her  duty. 


20  PERSONAL   REASONS   FOR   PUBLICATION. 

Through  the  day  the  prisoners,  to  give  exercise  to  their  limbs, 
would  romp  and  play  like  wild  horses,  until  the  building  would 
tremble  at  its  base.  The  long  loss  of  rest  made  me  faint  on  each 
returning  evening  for  the  quiet  of  two  o'clock  till  four  in  the 
morning,  which  promised  the  only  quiet  which  could  be  enjoyed, 
even  for  sleep,  in  this  pandemonium.  All  this  I  patiently  en 
dured  for  the  sake  of  the  truth. 

HOW   I   EMPLOYED   MYSELF. 

These  prisoners  treated  me  kindly  and  respectfully  underneath 
all  their  infirmities  and  misfortunes.  With  many  of  these  poor 
fellows  there  was  a  great  fountain  of  the  pure  milk  of  human  kind 
ness  still  flowing,  and  a  tender  sensibility,  which,  when  touched, 
would  break  forth  in  tears,  or  in  tones  of  subdued  affection,  for 
home,  and  family,  and  God.  I  duly  recognized  their  sympathy, 
and  addressed  myself  to  its  relief,  and  spent  my  time  in  writing 
letters  for  unfortunate  husbands  to  their  wives  who  were  left  in 
cabins  without  food  or  raiment,  except  as  it  was  earned  by  moth 
ers  at  the  wash-tub  or  in  the  broiling  sun.  Children  wrote  to 
their  disconsolate  parents  trembling  on  the  verge  of  the  grave. 
A  wild  frolicksome  fellow  who  had  grown  sad,  talked  to  me  of 
his  blackeyed  Mary  of  the  frontier,  her  playful  eye,  her  sweet 
voice  and,  and  the  last  pledge  of  love  he  had  made  to  her  before 
leaving  for  the  wars.  When  he  spoke,  ever  and  anon  a  tear 
would  sparkle  in  his  eye,  and  the  innocence  of  childhood  arise  in 
his  countenance,  checked  for  a  moment  by 'his  unfortunate  con 
dition,  as  the  floating  clouds  obscure  the  light  in  its  passage  over 
the  sun.  There  were  other  poor  fellows  arraigned  for  grave 
offences  against  God  and  liberty,  law  and  order,  whose  cases  I 
assisted  to  prepare  for  court.  There  was  no  amusement  other 
than  the  place  itself.  Our  only  theatrical  enjoyment  was  the 
outbursts  of  fine  Irish  wit  entirely  refreshed  by  such  whiskey  as 
would  never  have  found  a  place  in  Ireland. 


PERSONAL   REASONS   FOR   PUBLICATION.  21 

This  place  had  a  Chaplain,  of  whom  the  prisoners  knew  just 
nothing  at  all ;  as  innocent  of  human  nature  and  its  wants  as  an 
Englishman's  mastiff*  is  of  the  common  law  of  the  land.  He 
never  spoke  to  the  prisoners  of  their  real  spiritual  wants,  or 
assisted  them  in  making  their  condition  happier.  Yet  I  am  told, 
and  upon  this  subject  have  no  doubt,  that  he  drew  his  salary 
regularly.  I  left  the  place  with  many  kind  feelings  for  the  in 
mates.  I  tried  to  impress  each  of  them  with  the  conviction  that 
whilst  any  man  may  be  a  prisoner,  the  prisoner  should  not  forget 
that  he  is  still  a  man. 

Weighing  two  hundred  and  thirty  pounds,  suffocation  had  well 
nigh  exhausted  my  strength.  At  the  end  of  fourteen  days,  my 
wife,  who  is  a  lady  of  feeble  health  and  was  sick,  stopped  at  the 
Billings  House.  I  obtained  a  parole  of  honor,  to  be  confined  to 
that  hotel,  where  I  had  permission  to  remain.  During  this  time 
the  United  States  Circuit  Court  was  in  session  in  Des  Moines, 
for  the  purpose  of  finding  indictments.  Indictments  were  found 
against  men  for  various  offences.  Any  kind  of  indictment  would 
have  been  a  relief  to  the  Puritan  persecutors  who  were  hunting 
me  down.  The  whole  country  was  raked,  scraped,  canvassed 
and  scoured  by  spies,  pimps,  eaves-droppers,  and  common  in 
formers  in  the  genuine  spirit  of  Titus  Gates.  Every  effort  was 
used  —  personal  spite,  political  malice,  private  conversation,  news 
paper  scraps,*  written  speeches,  political  associations,  and  party  an 
tecedents,  were  all  thoroughly  examined  for  treason,  sedition,  or 
anything  which  would  disparage  my  love  of  country  or  prove  my 
sympathies  with  its  enemies.  But  no  indictment  could  be  found 
in  a  good  season  for  indictments,  when  one  was  needed  to  cover 
up  the  wrongs  committed  against  law,  order  and  decency  by  my 
assailants. 

It  was  unfortunate  for  the  safety  of  the  country  that  my  own 
is  not  the  only  instance  of  wrong  suffered,  nor  this  the  only  act 
of  violence  done  in  the  city  of  Keokuk.  They  have  been  fre 
quent  and  outrageous. 


22  PERSONAL   REASONS   FOB   PUBLICATION. 

The  Constitution  newspaper  office  was  destroyed.  Mr.  Hook 
er's  store  was  destroyed  in  the  same  way.  The  private  dwellings 
of  a  number  of  Democrats  were  assailed  in  the  dead  hour  of 
night  by  the  same  persons.  Houses  were  ransacked  in  the  same 
way ;  and  a  note  was  sent  by  this  young  man,  Ball,  to  an  officer, 
not  to  attack  a  private  family  unti]  the  husband  returned. 

Now,  the  time  has  come  when  it  is  the  duty  of  the  country  to 
enquire  who  is  to  blame  in  this  matter.  The  soldiers  are  but  par 
tially  accountable.  The  officers  in  command  are  first  in  fault. 
A  disciplined  army,  of  all  other  organizations,  is  not  a  mob.  It 
cannot  be,  whether  led  by  officers  or  carried  on  by  privates.  A 
mob  is  mutiny,  and  mutiny  is  punishable  with  death.  But  the 
very  object  of  an  army  is  to  keep  down  mobs  of  every  kind,  and 
if  the  army  turns  mob,  then  there  is  nothing  left  but  an  anarchy 
which  endangers  everybody  and  everything.  This  is  especially 
true  where  the  military  is  supremely  above  the  civil  authority. 
And  the  officer  who  engages  in  this  conduct  is  an  outlaw,  a  pirate, 
and  an  assassin. 

Keokuk  is  the  residence  of  Hon.  Samuel  F.  Miller,  Judge  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  He  might,  by  his 
word,  have  stopped  these  things  at  any  moment.  I  can  conceive 
how  the  public  mind  would  have  been  startled  to  hear  John  Mar 
shall  deliver  a  harangue  to  a  mob  in  the  Public  Square  of  Rich 
mond,  at  three  o'clock  on  the  holy  Sabbath  morning,  after  it  had 
assailed  the  private  dwellings,  and  destroyed  the  private  property 
of  his  distinguished,  peaceable,  law-abiding  neighbors.  Who 
would  have  believed  such  a  thing  possible  of  Robert  Grier,  or 
Henry  Baldwin  of  Pittsburgh,  of  Joseph  Story,  or  Judge  Curtis 
in  Boston,  or  Roger  B.  Taney  in  Baltimore  ?  This  is  not  written 
in  malice.  Judge  Miller  is  comparatively  a  young  man,  and  this 
gentle  hint  may  arouse  his  ambition  to  make  himself  worthy  of 
the  high  place  he  fills.  It  is  just  such  men  as  he  is  that  are  held 
responsible  to  God  and  the  country. 


PERSONAL  REASONS  FOR  PUBLICATION.  23 

I  had  not  been  in  the  guard  house  seventy  hours  for  exercising 
the  right  of  free  speech,  until  Gov.  Kirkwood,  Congressman  Wil 
son,  and  Adjutant  General  Baker,  were  posted  to  speak  within 
hearing  where  I  was  guarded,  and  Mr.  Wilson  endeavored  to 
•convince  the  people  that  all  arbitrary  arrests  were  right,  and  were 
not  of  sufficient  frequency.  It  is  these  passionate  harangues  that 
demoralized  the  army,  and  by  a  strict  and  fair  construction  of 
military  law,  these  men  are  mutineers ;  and  so  long  as  it  is  done 
there  can  be  no  safety  to  life,  liberty,  or  property.  This  much  I 
have  said  in  regard  to  the  authors  of  my  arrest. 

I  have  thus  written,  that  the  public  may  know  the  facts.  I 
shall  exaggerate  nothing,  and  write  nothing  in  bad  feeling.  I 
make  no  appeal  for  sympathy,  and  have  no  ambition  for  martyr 
dom.  I  have  simply  performed  a  duty  to  my  countrymen.  You 
see  what  may,  with  the  utmost  impunity,  be  done  to  an  Ameri 
can  citizen.  I  was  in  danger  at  any  time  from  assassination  from 
that  class  of  citizens  who  incite  all  the  mobs.  One  brave  soldier 
told  me  during  my  confinement,  that  a  citizen  of  Keokuk  had  of 
fered  him  one  hundred  dollars  if  he  would  assassinate  me ;  and 
told  the  soldier  that  the  crime  need  never  be  known ;  that  if  ar 
rested  he  would  be  acquitted  at  once ;  that  he  might  charge  me 
with  running  guard.  The  same  class  of  citizens  spoke  of  my 
assassination  in  the  bar-rooms  and  elsewhere.  Every  personal 
acquaintance  among  the  soldiers,  sick,  well,  and  convalescent, 
treated  me  with  kindness.  Every  demonstration  against  any  one 
was  instigated  by  the  malignant  citizens  and  the  imbecile  and  cor 
rupt  officers.  This  was  a  part  of  the  machinery  for  making  war 
on  the  Copperheads  of  the  North. 


The  Provost  Marshal,  was  exceedingly  tenacious  of  his  rights 
and  duties  as  an  officer,  and  showed  no  disposition  to  favor  or 
screen  me  from  any  charge  which  any  testimony  might  in  any- 


24  PERSONAL  REASONS  FOR  PUBLICATION. 

wise  justify  or  fasten  upon  me.  It  is  just  to  him,  however,  to 
say,  that  at  the  time  of  my  arrest  he  was  not  at  home,  and  was  in 
no  wise  a  party  to  the  personal  insults  offered  me,  but  has  treated 
me  with  civility. 

I  was  UNCONDITIONALLY  released,  more  firmly  than  ever  con 
vinced  that  the  Democratic  party  should  remain  united  as  the 
only  hope  of  the  country. 

From  the  effects  of  this  imprisonment  I  yet  suffer. 


Crimes  of  the  Civil  "War. 


BOOK: 


CHAPTER   I. 

DESTRUCTION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

SOCIETY  is  composed  of  individuals.  The  rights  and  powers 
of  society  are  the  aggregate  rights  and  powers  of  the  individuals 
that  compose  it.  They  can  be  neither  more  or  less,  any  more  than 
the  whole  can  be  more  or  less  than  its  parts.  Society  may  not  do 
anything  which  would  be  criminal  in  the  individual ;  for  the  same 
moral  laws  which  govern  the  individual  are  carried  with  him 
into  the  social  compact.  Every  man  has  a  right  to  govern  him 
self,  subject  only  to  the  laws  of  his  being. 

The  rights  and  powers  of  self-government  in  society  are  derived 
from  its  individual  members  who  have  transferred  them  to  the 
whole  for  the  benefit  and  protection  of  all,  and  the  more  perfect 
security  of  each. 

The  individual  could  not  transfer  more  than  he  possessed  nor 
society  receive  more  than  he  transferred. 

All  claims  to  absolute  powers  in  government  or  arbitrary 
Powers  in  the  individual  are  absurd,  all  transfers  of  rights  and 
Powers  to  society  by  the  individual  are  subject  to  the  supreme 
laws  of  the  universe  to  which  all  men  are  responsible. 

Government  is  a  contract  entered  into  among  a  people.  It  is 
of  men  purely,  and  cannot  be  of  more  binding  force  than  other 
contracts  made  in  good  faith  for  just  purposes  involving  equal 
interests.  The  rights  which  governments  are  made  to  protect  are 
divine — inherent.  The  powers  which  governments  exercise  are 


26  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

purely  human — derivative,  dependent  upon  the  will  of  the  people 
who  are  governed.  Man  has  power  to  govern  himself.  More 
over,  he  has  no  earthly  guardian  of  greater  capacity  than  himself. 
Self-government  then,  is  not  only  a  right,  but  a  necessity.  Man 
has  all  of  the  rights  with  all  of  the  powers  of  self-government 
and  self-defence,  for  the  same  reasons. 

All  men  are  capable  of  self-government,  and  are  the  sole  judges 
of  its  substance,  form  and  details.  This  is  true  of  the  most  ignor 
ant  and  barbarous  nations.  It  is  not  a  good  argument  against 
this  doctrine  that  since  the  government  of  one  people  is  not  as 
good  as  that  of  another,  therefore  the  people  are  not  capable  of 
self-government  whose  system  is  inferior.  It  is  a  sufficient 
answer  that  they  are  satisfied  with  their  system,  and  others  have 
neither  right  nor  interest  in  the  premises.  For  example,  the 
government  of  the  North  American  Indians  would  not  satisfy 
either  the  desires  or  ambition  of  the  people  of  Paris,  New  York 
or  London.  Yet  it  is  a  far  better  government  for  them  than  that 
of  any  of  those  cities  or  their  respective  countries. 

There  can  be  no  better  evidence  of  this  than  the  fact  that  it  is 
impossible  to  persuade  these  savages  to  surrender  their  systems 
for  any  other. 

Every  government  is  the  photograph  of  the  will  and  capacity 
of  the  people  with  whom  it  originates. 

What  are  called  improvements  in  government,  no  more  repre 
sent  the  real  wants  of  all  people  than  the  portrait  of  a  Caucassian 
belle  represents  the  naked  squaw  or  half-dressed  negro  wench. 
A  violation  of  this  law  leads  to  endless  mischief. 

Again,  I  cite  the  Indians  who  have  systems  of  government  and 
religion  adapted  to  themselves,  but  not  to  civilized  nations. 
Civilized  nations  have  therefore  foolishly,  nay  wickedly, —  elated 
with  the  superiority  of  their  own  institutions,  framed  by  the 
architectural  skill  of  centuries  and  happily  adjusted  to  every  con 
ceivable  necessity  of  polished  society, — attempted  to  force  them 
upon  uncultivated  savages,  who  have  nothing  in  common  with 
them ;  and  for  the  enjoyment  of  which  nature  has  given  them 
no  capacity.  Therefore  every  attempt  at  propagandism  among 
the  Indians  has  been  not  only  a  failure,  but  a  positive  injury 
and  atrocious  crime  against  nature,  who  has  the  greatest  capa- 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  27 

city  and  most  happy  facility  for  the  government  of  her  own 
children. 

God  has  provided  for  the  Indian  a  system  of  government.  He 
worships  a  being  beyond  his  comprehension,  yet  assimilated  to 
himself.  His  worship  has  been  carefully  systematized  by  his 
ancestors,  and  is  perfectly  in  itself,  adapted  to  his  nature,  if  not  to 
his  wants.  The  Indian  was  not  made  for  the  civilization  peculiar 
to  the  white  man.  It  was  a  crime  to  attempt  to  bestow  it  upon 
him  with  force.  The  details  of  the  religion  and  political  system 
of  the  white  race  could  not  be  taught  to  the  Indian  by  persuasion ; 
nor  could  it  be  imposed  upon  him  by  any  combination  of  force 
through  the  agencies  of  missionaries,  courts  or  armies.  Yet  the 
Indian  is  capable  of  self-government,  and  has  a  right  to  govern 
himself  in  his  own  way. 

There  is  a  very  great  difference  in  the  degree  of  the  cultiva 
tion,  refinement,  and  manner  of  life  of  different  families  of  the 
same  race  and  nation,  yet  the  right  of  each  family  to  live  under 
its  own  lawful  government  is  unquestionable;  and  it  must  be  ad 
mitted  that  this  very  difference  in  family  government  makes  it 
necessary  that  each  family  does  govern  itself  in  its  own  way. 
"What  is  true  of  the  family  must  be  true  of  the  nation ;  the  same 
principles  of  right,  propriety  and  law  apply  in  like  manner  to 
each  and  cannot  be  changed  without  violence  to  all.  In  the  en 
joyment  of  the  right  of  self-government,  the  title  of  every  people 
is  inalienable  and  supreme. 

These  rights  can  be  destroyed  only  by  destroying  the  commu 
nities  which  have  inherited  them. 

To  destroy  communities  for  the  enjoyment  of  their  inherent 
rights,  is  a  crime  of  nameless  atrocity.  To  kill  a  people  in  the 
defence  of  their  inalienable  rights  is  murder,  to  burn  their  prop 
erty  is  arson,  to  carry  it  off  is  robbery,  to  break  open  their  houses 
is  burglary. 

Burning  -up  mills,  barns  and  stack-yards,  laying  plantations 
waste  to  starve  innocent  women,  helpless  children,  and  defenceless 
age,  is  crime  in  its  most  revolting  form  —  a  shameful  retreat  from 
civilization  to  barbarism,  from  which  there  is  no  safe  return. 

Whatever  may  be  the  plausible  pretext  for  the  savage  cruelty 
of  desolating  campaigns,  the  whole  force  of  suffering  falls  upon 


28  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

the  old  men  tottering  over  the  grave,  the  sick  who  are  unable  to 
provide  for  themselves,  the  half  lame,  blind,  deaf  and  dumb  — 
the  women  whom  old  age  and  the  infirmities  of  the  sex  have  dis 
abled  from  flight,  and  children  who  have  neither  disposition,  intelli 
gence  or  strength  to  leave  their  homes.  Such  are  the  victims  of 
these  crimes  against  civilization. 

The  soldier  in  arms  who  fights  will  fly  from  the  desolate 
countries  overrun  with  this  barbarism,  and  seek  refuge  where 
plenty  abounds.  When  their  own  can  no  longer  sustain  them, 
the  soldiers  will  invade  the  country  whence  supplies  are  drawn, 
and  re-enact  in  retaliation  the  horrid  crimes  which  have  lain  their 
own  country  in  ashes.  With  the  recollection  of  destitute  parents, 
the  piteous  cries  of  heart-broken  children,  the  screams  of  ravished 
wives,  sisters,  mothers,  and  daughters,  echo  in  their  ears  and  incite 
them  to  revenge. 

As  the  sight  of  their  burning  homes  and  ruined  families  arouse 
them  to  wild  desperation,  they  leap  like  wounded  tigers  into  the 
conflict,  unconscious  of  danger  and  fearless  of  death. 

The  burning  of  manufactories  falls  entirely  upon  the  helpless, 
who,  unable  to  obtain  by  industry  or  reprisal  what  they  have  lost, 
through  their  inability  to  protect  themselves  against  the  invasion 
and  rapine  of  military  force.  How  inexcusable  is  the  destruction 
of  that  property  which  God  has  kindly  given  us  to  preserve  and 
minister  to  our  comfort. 

The  orchard  and  vineyard  ought  not  to  be  disturbed  nor  the 
water  course  changed  from  its  bed,  nor  springs  nor  wells  be  pois 
oned.  These  are  the  common  property  of  the  good  and  the  evil 
upon  whom  the  sun  shines,  the  just  and  the  unjust,  upon  whom 
the  rain  descends. 

No  law  can  justify  nor  can  any  language  apologize  for  these 
crimes  against  a  people,  struggling  to  maintain  the  right  of  self- 
government. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL  WAK.  29 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  CIVILIZATION  BY  MONGRELISM. 

THE  earliest  governments  originated  in  the  family,  and  were 
patriarchal. 

Nations  were  amplifications  of  the  family  and  maintained 
their  identity  with  their  integrity,  by  refusing  to  amalgamate 
with  other  nations. 

Jacob  refused  Dinah  to  her  ravisher,  and  not  only  did  not  al 
low  him  to  marVy  into  the  family,  but  his  sons  slew  him. 

The  Ammonites  and  the  Moabites  were  not  allowed  to  enter 
into  the  congregation  of  the  Lord. 

Legitimate  governments  include  nationalities,  but  not  differ 
ent  peoples ;  and  must  be  adapted  to  the  character  of  the  gov 
erned. 

Different  and  unequal  races  cannot  live  happily  or  safely  un 
der  the  same  government,  upon  an  equality. 

1.  This   was   never   attempted    before  its  introduction   into 
South  America,  Mexico  and  the  West  India  Islands,  and  is 
there  an  exemplification  of  all  the  cruelties  of  barbarism,  di 
rected  by  all  of  the  shrewd  villainies  of  civilization. 

2.  It  is  unjust  and  absurd  that  people,  who  require  entirely 
different  systems,  should  be  subjected  to  the  same  form  and  de 
tails  of  government. 

By  this  unnatural  means  the  more  elevated  are  degraded  by 
legal  association ;  whilst  the  more  degraded  cannot  be  elevated 
by  laws  above  their  moral  condition  and  mental  capacity. 

When  such  an  unnatural  condition  of  things  may  happen, 
still  the  people  must  be  governed  to  give  them  protection  and 
security. 

It  is  then  the  duty  of  the  superior  race  in  the  spirit  of  jus 
tice,  to  assume  guardianship  over  the  inferior  race,  and  control 


30  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

it  by  such  parental  regulations  as  are  adapted  to  its  degraded 
condition. 

Such  were  the  systems  of  the  two  great  statesmen  of  the 
world,  Moses  of  ancient,  and  Jefferson  of  modern  times. 

Moses  reduced  the  Canaanites  to  chattel  slavery,  to  secure 
their  subservience  to  the  Jewish  people.  The  law-makers  un 
der  the  system  of  Jefferson,  having  the  more  difficult  task  of 
dealing  with  three  distinct  and  entirely  different  races,  removed 
the  Indians  from  among  the  whites,  and  subjected  the  negroes 
to  personal  servitude,  which  in  some  form  or  other  must  exist 
whilst  the  races  remain  in  contact,  or  live  in  close  proximity. 
When  this  cannot  be  done,  either  through  the  rebellion  of  the 
inferior,  or  the  folly  of  the  superior  race,  then  degradation  and 
anarchy  bring  both  races  prostrate  together. 

The  remedy  for  this  last  condition  of  things  is  the  removal 
of  the  inferior  from  among  the  superior,  if  it  be  possible.  This 
was  the  plan  adopted  for  the  relief  of  the  Israelites  in  their 
subjection  to  the  Egyptians — and  offers  the  only  ray  of  hope  for 
the  final  preservation  of  American  society,  and  the  ultimate  re 
lief  of  the  blacks  of  America  from  annihilation. 

The  negro  race  is  tractable  and  capable  of  a  superficial  and 
limited  improvement;,  but  herein  lies  the  difficulty  that  they 
have  no  capacity  for  the  perpetuity  of  knowledge  or  the  im 
provement  of  their  offspring.  An  elephant  may  be  taught  the 
performance  of  the  most  extraordinary  feats,  but  cannot  teach 
them  to  its  young ;  so  may  the  negro  receive  knowledge  from  the 
white  man,  but  will  not  impart  it  to  his  children.  Their  normal 
condition  can  no  more  be  permanently  changed  than  can  their 
climates  with  its  fruit  and  soil. 

The  peaceful  servitude  of  the  blacks  of  the  United  States  has 
ended  in  civil  war.  Every  Christian  sentiment  revolts  at  a  war  of 
races  in  which  the  negro  must  disappear  in  universal  bloodshed. 

The  emigration  of  the  negro  from  the  United  States  to  Africa 
or  elsewhere,  is  his  last  refuge  of  hope.  This  must  be  accom 
plished  to  save  both  the  negroes  and  the  whites  from  mutual 
degradation  or  mutual  destruction.  Against  this  it  is  argued 
that  the  negroes  were  born  here,  and  ought  not  therefore  to  be 
removed  or  forced  to  emigrate. 


CRIMES  OP  THE  CIVIL   WAK.  31 

But  we  may  urge  that  the  Israelites,  through  forty  years' 
march,  left  Egypt  and  emigrated  to  Canaan  to  secure  their  free 
dom  and  enjoy  their  homes  and  the  land  of  their  fathers. 

That  we  have  removed  the  Indians  from  the  Atlantic  off  of 
their  own  lands  to  the  farthest  verge  of  the  continent,  to  secure 
a  peaceful  separation  of  the  races. 

The  French  of  South  Carolina,  the  English  of  North  Carolina, 
Virginia,  and  Georgia,  the  Catholics  of  Maryland,  the  Dutch  of 
New  York  and  New  Jersey,  the  Quakers  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Delaware,  the  Puritans  of  New  England,  the  Germans,  Celts, 
Sclavonians,  and  Scandinavians,  all  have  come  from  the  land  of 
their  birth  to  secure  freedom.  Every  hotel  in  the  cities  is  filled 
with  white  servant  girls,  who,  for  the  same  reason,  are  saving  their 
weekly  pittances  to  bring  their  indigent  parents,  brothers  or  sis 
ters  to  America.  The  rapid  increase  of  the  white  race  in  the 
United  States  makes  emigration  a  necessity.  Africa  is  the  only 
division  of  the  earth  that  invites  emigration  and  enterprize  in 
vain  ;  and  the  negroes  the  only  people  who  can  endure  its  climate 
or  cultivate  its  soil.  Emigration  to  Africa  secures  to  the  negro 
self-government.  It  will  secure  to  him  civilization,  if  he  has  ca 
pacity  to  civilize ;  and  if  he  have,  what  a  future  for  this  unfor 
tunate  people  to  go  to  the  land  of  their  fathers,  to  cultivate  the 
soil,  beautify  the  plains,  navigate  the  rivers,  develop  the  wealth 
of  the  mountains,  cultivate  the  rich  valleys  of  the  Niger  and  the 
Nile,  whiten  the  coasts  of  Liberia  and  Guinea  with  fleets  and 
merchantmen  made  of  their  native  forests. 

They  can  avail  themselves  of  the  generosity  of  nature  to  their 
native  land  and  enter  the  lists  with  Europe  and  America  in  the 
agricultural  staples  of  the  world.  They  can  unfurl  the  banner 
of  the  Holy  Cross  to  their  barbarous  brethren,  and  behold  Prin 
ces  come  up  out  of  Egypt  and  Ethiopia  and  stretch  forth  her  hand 
to  God. 

This  has  never  yet  been,  but  let  it  be,  if  possible.  But  of  it  be 
not  possible  for  a  race  of  people  to  assume  civilization  on  a  conti 
nent  of  which  they  may  have  exclusive  habitation,  assisted  by  the 
civilized  nations  of  the  earth,  then  it  were  a  crime  against  civil 
ization  to  propose  to  such  a  people  government  a  partnership 
with  the  master  race,  whose  children  in  the  prosecution  of  busi- 


32  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK. 

ness,  trade  and  enterprize  penetrate  to  the  remotest  parts  of  the 
earth. 

To  the  people  of  the  country  is  committed  the  removal  of  this 
unhappy  race  and  the  prevention  of  the  debasing  crime  of  rnongrel- 
ism,  barbarism,  idolatry,  and  the  obliteration  of  office-government. 

The  Mongolian  race  representing  560,000,000  of  the  human 
family  in  commercial  communication  with  the  United  States, 
tempted  by  the  gold  mines  of  California,  are  pouring  their  emi 
gration  upon  the  Pacific  coast  and  have  it  within  their  easy  reach 
of  power  to  place  fifty  millions  of  their  population  in  the  United 
States,  where  they  will  work  for  less  wages,  live  on  less  food  than 
Americans. 

Their  votes  can  be  purchased  for  a  trifle.  Their  habits  and 
morals  are  of  the  low,  heathen  type  and  their  worship  idolatrous. 
They  must  be  excluded  from  the  rights  of  suffrage  to  preserve 
the  Pacific  governments.  Could  any  government  outlive  this 
elective  influence?  These  are  not  only  the  Chinese,  but  they 
are  drift-wood  of  the  Chinese.  The  dangers  of  this  monstrous 
Mongrel  theory  is  transparent.  It  would  seem  superfluous  to 
recite  the  failures,  horrors,  anarchies,  despotisms,  butcheries,  cruel 
ties,  idolatries  and  recklessness  of  society  consequent  upon  the 
Mongrelized  governments  of  Mexico,  South  America,  and  the 
Islands  of  the  Atlantic. 

After  having  robbed  the  Indians  of  their  lands,  home  and  self- 
government,  despoiled  their  country,  corrupted  their  morals, 
and  butchered  them  in  their  wigwams,  to  get  rid  of  a  degraded 
race ;  it  seems  incredible  that  an  intelligent  people  should  repeat 
the  experiment  upon  an  even  more  degraded  race  than  the  Indian. 
This  is  the  more  remarkable  when  they  propose  the  elevation  of 
the  negro  by  the  degradation  of  the  white  race. 

If  it  did  not  involve  the  prosperity  and  glory  of  a  continent,  it 
were  laughable  to  read  the  legislative  edicts  against  the  decrees 
of  nature,  the  cultivation  of  negroes  by  its  whites,  who  are  inca 
pable  of  self-support,  and  by  the  merest  miracle  are  outside  of 
insane  asylums  and  schools  fop  idiots. 

The  condition  of  the  poor  negro  remains  unchanged ;  neither 
his  color  nor  his  imbecility  have  yielded  to  the  weekly  meetings 
of  the  grand  Army  of  the  Kepublic ;  nor  has  the  thriftless  Afri- 


CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAB.  33 

can  been  fed  by  the  millions  squandered  upon  the  revolutionary 
vagabonds  who  have  rioted  upon  the  public  property  and  destroyed 
the  public  peace.  The  black  man,  after  elections  as  before  it,  re 
mains  as  ever,  the  same  stupid,  stolid  creature  of  circumstance, 
the  victim  of  chicanery,  which  impels  him  to  seek  shelter  under 
the  benign  protection  of  the  white  man,  or  perish  in  his  ineffectual 
attempt  to  fight  climates  for  which  nature  has  left  him  literally 
unprepared.  Nature  is  never  defeated,  nor  will  she  suffer  in  the 
present  conflict. 


34  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 


CHAPTER   III. 

INVASION  OF  PERSONAL  RIGHTS. 

THERE  are  rights  older  than  elections,  for  the  protection  of 
which  elections  are  held,  which  they  cannot  destroy  and  dare 
not  invade.  Older  and  more  sacred  than  constitutions,  these 
rights  constitute  the  essential  elements  of  our  manhood ;  with 
out  which  we  are  mere  beasts  of  burden  to  be  driven  by  the 
whip  of  the  master-machines,  directed  by  external  forces  —  idiots, 
lunatics  and  imbeciles,  who  tamely  yield  to  the  will  of  their 
keeper. 

These  rights  can  be  suspended  only  by  the  fiat  of  the  Deity, 
who  may  hinder  our  speech,  bewilder  our  understanding,  sus 
pend  our  powers  of  thought,  or  divest  us  of  those  sparkling 
fires  of  his  own  intelligence  stamped  with  his  image  on  our  be 
ing  ;  or  they  may  be  surrendered,  by  our  imbecility  and  pusil 
lanimity,  or  by  our  crimes  forfeited  to  society  whose  equal  rights 
we  invade. 

These  rights  are  sacred  as  our  person:  —  as  the  brain  which 
conceives,  and  the  heart  which  feeds  them  with  its  elemental 
life  —  are  indefeasible.  Neither  legislatures,  courts  nor  kings 
can  justly  divest  us  of  our  life,  liberty,  property  or  pursuit  of 
happiness,  without  due  process  of  law,  or  in  punishment  of 
crimes. 

These  rights  are  inalienable,  and  may  no  more  be  sold  or  bar 
tered  to  tyrants,  than  the  limbs  may  be  amputated  and  sold  to 
the  surgeon,  or  the  living  body  be  delivered  to  the  dissecting 
room,  for  the  purposes  of  anatomy. 

These  rights  are  indefeasible.  No  claim  of  violence  or  force 
can  be  valid  against  them. 

Conquest  is  armed  robbery ;  government  by  conquest  is  usur 
pation. 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  35 

Usurpation  is  the  most  enormous  crime  which  can  be  perpe 
trated  against  society.  It  is  robbery  in  its  most  offensive  form. 
Other  robbers  take  the  property,  and  suffer  the  victim  to  pursue 
his  regular  vocation :  the  usurper  absorbs  the  fountains  of  life 
as  the  sponge  drinks  up  the  water,  and  by  one  well-directed 
blow,  lays  prostrate  the  great  power  of  a  people,  that  he  may 
enslave  talent,  and  quench  the  fires  of  genius  in  their  opening 
flame.  He  crushes  out  liberty  with  all  the  noblest  elements  of 
a  great  people  who  are  forced  to  see  through  his  eyes,  hear  with 
his  ears,  and  breathe  through  his  nostrils.  Drunken  with  power, 
the  usurper  becomes  more  degraded  than  his  willing  victims.  It 
is  the  trick  of  usurpers  to  confound  usurpation  with  government, 
that  he  may  conciliate  resistance,  and  appease  the  law-abiding. 

Government  is  a  contract  ratified  by  the  people.  Usurpation 
is  a  forcible  entry  and  detainer  upon  their  rights  of  government. 

The  people  of  every  country  are  under  obligation  to  obey  its 
laws,  but  are  under  the  same  obligation  to  resist  usurpation. 

The  mere  violation  of  law  by  a  criminal  while  endangering 
the  public  security,  need  not  impair  its  majesty,  wrhich  retains 
the  power  to  enforce  its  mandates. 

But  usurpation  strikes  down  the  law,  destroys  that  house  of 
refuge,  without  which,  society  is  left  to  the  wanton  inroads  of 
desperate  men,  and  the  passionate  violence  of  reckless  fanatics, 
who  may  choose  to  forage  upon  their  fields,  and  prey  upon  their 
substance. 

The  ordinary  law-breaker  gratifies  some  morbid  appetite, 
unbridles  some  furious  passion,  or  indulges  in  some  vicious  habit: 
the  usurper  destroys  all  security  of  the  people,  and  becomes  the 
enemy  of  society,  which  is  imperiled  by  his  existence,  and  can 
appeal  to  no  law  to  protect  him. 

When  a  people  have  good  grounds  to  believe  that  their  rights 
will  be  invaded  under  cover  of  the  forms  of  law,  and  resist  the 
initiatory  steps  of  aggression,  the  lawful  authorities  may  conduct 
themselves  in  such  a  manner,  as  to  justify  the  people  in  prosecu 
ting  a  rebellion,  which  in  the  beginning  was  unjustifiable. 

For  resistance  to  law,  every  government  has  ample  power  to 
punish  offenders;  for  usurpation,  governments  have  provided 
no  adequate  remedy. 


36  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Usurpation  is  a  crime  which  must  be  repelled  rather  than 
punished.  When  by  common  consent,  any  one  is  deemed  a  tyrant 
or  usurper,  and  resists  the  ordinary  modes  of  redress  obtainable 
by  law,  or  corrupts  the  fountains  of  justice,  that  the  people  may 
have  no  adequate  security  in  the  courts,  then  the  people  have  an 
undoubted  right  to  repel  him  as  they  would  a  thief  in  the  night, 
a  burglar  at  their  door,  or  an  assassin  at  their  throat.  The  usur 
per  is  thief,  burglar  and  assassin  combined,  whose  compound 
felonies  against  society  are  alike  dangerous  to  every  individual. 

This  law  of  force  is  the  last  terrible  remedy  against  usurpation. 

Resistance  to  usurpation  is  just.  The  usurper  has  no  claims 
to  the  protection  of  law,  because  his  powers  are  derived  from  the 
suspension  of  law.  He  holds  his  power  by  force,  and  cannot 
complain  if  force  overpowers  him. 

The  right  to  dethrone  tyrants  and  usurpers,  and  destroy  them 
when  they  cannot  be  otherwise  removed,  has  had  the  sanction  of 
liberal  and  j  ust  men  of  all  times  and  countries.  Brutus  removed 
Ca?sar  by  bloody  stealth.  Although  Caesar  had  interwoven  his 
great  name  with  Roman  glory,  and  added  new  lustre  and  renown 
to  the  science  of  arms,  yet,  after  the  lapse  of  centuries,  Brutus  is 
canonized  in  history  as  the  last  immortal  patriot  of  Rome. 

Tell  slew  Gessler,  and  the  tyrant  is  indebted  to  his  slayer  for  a 
place  in  history,  which  is  awarded  him  only  to  perpetuate  the 
memory  of  his  just  death. 

Our  own  Indians  slay  their  usurpers  with  grave  and  impos 
ing  ceremonies,  as  the  only  remedy  left  them  to  preserve  their 
liberties. 

The  chief  heroes  of  history  are  rebels,  who  have  resisted 
unlawful  assumptions  of  power,  such  as  Washington,  Henry 
and  Jeiferson  :  those  who  have  slain  the  oppressors  of  their  kins 
men,  as  did  Moses:  those  who  have  avenged  their  personal 
wrongs  in  the  blood  of  their  tyrants,  as  Charlotte  Corday,  who 
slew  Marat.  Those  people  have  been  enbalmed  in  the  hearts  of 
Americans,  and  elevated  to  the  proudest  place  in  the  liberal  his 
tory  of  the  world,  who  have  executed  their  kings  for  the  usurp 
ation  of  their  rights ;  and  no  executed  felons  find  less  sympathy 
in  posterity,  than  is  awarded  to  the  memories  of  Louis  of  France 
and  Charles  of  England. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL  WAR.  37 

The  revolution  of  1776  was  a  terrible  struggle  for  the  main 
tenance  of  personal  rights,  invaded  by  political  power. 

Revolutions,  or  even  rebellions,  are  never  purely  artificial.  A 
mere  irruption  upon  the  surface  of  society  will  soon  pass  away 
with  but  slight  inconvenience  to  communities. 

Revolution  is  the  explosion  of  society  from  the  presence  of  in 
congruous  elements  in  conflict.  Revolutions  cannot  be  causeless, 
any  more  than  are  fevers,  earthquakes,  volcanoes  or  hurricanes. 
The  diseased  condition  of  the  human  system  amply  explains  the 
fever ;  the  convulsions  of  the  earth  as  fairly  interpret  the  earth 
quake  ;  the  insatiable  stomach  of  fire  which  belches  forth  its  vol 
umes  of  flaming  scoriae,  duly  accounts  for  the  volcano  ;  the  collis- 
sion  of  the  elements  is  the  solution  of  the  hurricane.  The  assump 
tions  of  power,  trespasses  upon  liberty,  outrages  upon  rights,  with 
their  concomitants,  corruptions  in  office,  and  exacting  annoyances 
of  petty  officials ;  promptly  met  by  tenacity  of  self-government, 
maintenance  of  individuality,  love  of  liberty,  and  personal  repose, 
are  the  common  and  legitimate  causes  of  revolution.  The  people 
never  redress  their  wrongs  too  speedily,  or  punish  the  usurper  too 
severely.  It  is  the  business  of  usurpers  to  concentrate  power, 
employ  mercenary  armies,  wring  taxes  from  the  people  to  pay 
for  the  usurpation  of  their  government  and  crushing  out  liberty. 

Personal  liberty  is  always  in  danger.  It  is  the  life-blood  upon 
which  the  tigers  of  usurpation  riot. 

The  only  safety  is  to  resist  every  encroachment  upon  liberty. 
The  defence  of  personal  rights  is  a  duty  tantamount  to  the 
preservation  of  life  itself.  The  quiet  surrender  of  liberty  is  a 
crime  for  which  cowardice  can  offer  no  satisfactory  apology,  an 
enormity  that  admits  of  no  palliation.  The  crime  is  multiplied 
in  the  father,  who  compromises  his  children  in  the  transmission 
of  his  slavery.  Such  is  the  depravity  of  tyrants,  that  failing  to 
apologize  for  the  wrongs  perpetrated  upon  society,  they  imagine 
that  the  public  intelligence  has  undergone  the -same  changes  that 
their  crimes  have  wrought  upon  themselves,  and  exercise  usur 
pation  as  a  matter  of  right.  The  questions  of  personal  liberty 
admit  of  no  argument,  they  are  self-evident. 

"Whenever  a  usurper  offers  a  reason  why  a  whole  people 
should  be  robbed,  burned,  disfranchised,  degraded  and  destroyed, 


38'  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

and  proceeds  to  the  execution  of  this  horrible  work,  the  people 
have  no  remedy  left  them  but  the  sabre  and  the  musket. 

Against  violent  usurpation  there  is  no  remedy  but  resistance ; 
this  is  the  law  of  nature  which,  through  the  mutations  of  time, 
has  come  down  to  us  unimpaired,  maintained  by  the  most  astute 
statesmen,  defended  by  the  most  heroic  warriors,  led  by  the 
ablest  generals,  sung  by  the  sublimes!  poets,  in  the  most  inspir 
ing  song ;  instituted  by  God  in  the  liberation  of  Israel  from 
Egypt,  and  approved  by  the  just  and  generous  sentiment  of 
mankind. 

When  the  liberties  of  Rome  were  usurped  by  Caesar,  the 
people  had  no  other  remedy  than  that  which  brought  him  to  the 
earth  by  the  dagger  of  Brutus ;  nor  had  the  Swiss  any  other 
mode  of  vindicating  their  liberty  against  the  cruelty  of  Gessler, 
than  by  the  vengeful  hand  of  Tell. 

History  has  never  murmured  against  the  verdict,  nor  de 
murred  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  bloody  courts. 

Charles  Stuart  was  not  amenable  to  the  courts  of  common  law ; 
the  maxim  was  imperious  that  the  King  could  do  no  wrong,  but 
that  very  maxim  appealed  his  case  to  another  court,  where  all 
maxims  were  suspended,  and  passion's  fevered  lips  were  burning 
in  unquenched  thirst  for  royal  blood,  and  must  be  satiated. 

The  King  had  no  right  to  complain.  He  had  first  destroyed 
the  law  and  substituted  his  arbitrary  will  in  its  stead ;  and  when 
in  his  extremity,  he  appealed  to  the  British  constitution  for  pro 
tection  against  violence,  his  remedies  failed  him.  His  own  vio 
lence  had  prepared  the  scaffold  to  consummate  his  ruin;  and  end 
his  usurpation  and  his  life  together. 

Louis  XVI  was  not  the  worst  of  all  the  European  tyrants. 
His  name  was  endeared  to  Americans  as  their  fast  and  opportune 
friend  in  their  infant  struggle  for  liberty.  But  the  sovereignty 
of  Louis  was  an  expense  upon  the  life,  liberty  and  property  of 
the  subject  —  in  wars,  prisons  and  taxation,  the  implements  of 
tyrants  in  every  age  which  the  enlightened  people  of  France 
could  no  longer  endure  —  and  sought  their  only  relief  in  his 
speedy  and  violent  death. 

It  was  not  the  versatile  pen  of  Voltaire,  the  Revolutionary 
eloquence  of  Mirabeau,  or  the  pathetic  appeals  of  Rosseau  that 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE.  39 

begat  the  French  Revolution.  It  was  the  oppression  of  the 
people  suffered  in  their  persons,  who,  after  exhausting  all  other 
remedies,  flew  to  arms,  choosing  rather  to  perish  in  glorious 
vindication  of  their  honor  and  liberty  than  live  in  perpetual 
bondage. 

It  were  the  better  way  to  arraign,  try,  and  convict  tyrants 
according  to  the  forms  of  law,  but  this  can  never  be  done. 
They  always  cunningly  prevent  the  possibility  of  legal  trials, 
and  defy  legal  responsibility.  What  tribunal  dare  arraign  or 
arrest  Julius  Caesar  ?  What  remedy  had  the  people  ?  They 
dared  not  even  speak  of  their  wrongs.  This  was  sedition.  Caesar 
created  and  demolished  courts;  called  and  prorogued  councils. 
Caesar  was  ruling  tyrant;  the  people  were  helpless  slaves. 
Brutus  slew  Caesar;  this  was  the  only  remedy  for  the  over 
shadowing  evil  —  a  just  punishment  of  his  crime.  The  guilt 
of  his  own  blood  rested  on  the  tyrant's  head,  which  had  been 
justly  forfeited  to  mankind. 

Assassination  is  a  hideous  crime,  which  undermines  the  foun 
dations  of  society,  and  brings  the  grand  old  temple  of  human 
government  toppling  to  the  earth,  and  makes  every  man  seem 
priina  facie  the  enemy  of  mankind.  Whether  the  crime  be 
perpetrated  by  ruler  or  citizen,  king  or  subject,  it  loses  none  of 
its  innate  and  ineffable  horror. 

But  here  arises  the  startling  question  which  must  be  carried 
before  the  high  court  of  history  and  the  great  chancery  of  God, 
which  will  in  passionless  judgment  sit  upon  our  actions.  Who 
is  the  assassin  ?  The  man  who  in  frenzied  madness  strikes  the 
fatal  blow;  or  the  tyrant  who  overthrows  all  government — 
destroys  his  own  safety  in  his  rage  to  torture  his  enemies ;  or 
gratifies  his  spite  by  plunging  the  country  into  civil  war  and 
universal  anarchy ;  who  regards  nothing  of  law  except  its 
power  to  punish  and  inflict  its  penalties  to  satiate  his  malice  ? 

A  guilty  ruler  imprisons  legislatures,  overawes  courts  by 
degrading  its  judges,  and  gives  discretionary  license  to  levy 
arbitrary  taxes,  and  suspends  personal  rights ;  invites  violence  and 
destruction  from  the  people  and  invokes  the  judgments  of  God, 
which  fall  upon  those  who  exalt  themselves  above  justice  and 
courts. 


40  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR. 

Whoever  may  not  be  tried  for  his  crimes,  invokes  judgment 
without  trial.  Upon  these  two  axioms  have  we  built  the  Amer- 
can  system : 

1.  "  THAT  ALL  JUST  POWERS  OF  GOVERNMENT  ARE  DERIVED 
FROM  THE  CONSENT  OF  THE  GOVERNED." 

2.  "  KESISTANCE  TO  TYRANTS  is  OBEDIENCE  TO  GOD." 


CRIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL   WAE.  41 


CHAPTER  IV.      - 

VIOLATION  OF  THE  RIGHTS  OF  THE  STATES  BY  THE  FEDERAL  GOVERNMENT. 

THE  war  between  the  States  of  the  Union  was  not  a  riot. 
It  was  deliberate,  systematic  and  orderly,  upon  the  part  of  the 
Southern  States.  It  was  not  an  insurrection  or  rebellion,  every 
thing  was  done  in  subordination  to  the  law  and  sovereign  power 
of  the  States,  in  which  it  transpired  with  no  more  of  violence 
than  is  common  to  warfare.  It  was  not  a  revolution.  It 
changed  none  of  the  organic  laws  of  the  States,  the  people  armed 
themselves  according  to  law  to  repel  a  threatened  invasion  of 
their  country,  overthrow  of  their  government  and  violations  of 
their  political,  legal  and  social  rights  in  which  they  failed,  and 
are  now  realizing  their  worst  anticipated  fears. 

It  was  a  war  between  independent  States,  in  violation  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  as  interpreted  by  its  framers ; 
by  the  Supreme  Court,  its  legal  exponent  and  the  statesmen 
and  publicists,  contemporary  with  its  existence. 

The  pretext  for  the  war  was  the  preservation  of  the  Union  — 
an  organized  Union  fighting  against  organized  States,  the  whole 
destroying  its  parts  was  the  monstrous  absurdity. 

Among  equal  contracting  parties,  rape  was  substituted  for 
marriage,  or  consent  was  extorted  by  force  as  the  sublimest 
spectacle  of  free  government. 

This  doctrine  is  the  fruitful  parent  of  all  of  the  machinery  of 
despotism,  standing  armies,  taxations,  corruptions  and  slavery. 

The  rights  of  the  States  and  the  power  of  the  general  govern 
ment  have  been  in  harmony  from  the  beginning,  a  combination 
for  protection  without  the  right  or  power  of  destruction. 

I.  The  original  nineteen  Colonies  were  organized  under  char 
ters  and  contracts  from  Great  Britain,  the  very  terjns  of  which 
made  them  separate  in  their  territory,  in  their  estates,  franchise 


42  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

and  colonial  existence;  no  one  colony  claiming  co-ordinate 
jurisdiction  with  or  supremacy  over  the  others. 

In  so  far  as  was  stipulated  by  contract,  Majesty  itself  did  not 
dare  interfere  with  these  charters.  Such  was  the  declaration  of 
the  Virginia  Convention  of  1774. 

The  Colonies  made  their  own  laws,  and  colonists  held  their 
property  by  virtue  of  their  inherent  right. 

It  may  be  tedious,  but  I  trust  not  interesting,  to  present  an 
epitome  of  the  condition  of  the  settlement  of  the  colonies.  This 
is  the  most  prominent  feature  of  the  whole  colonization  of  the 
American  settlement.  That  they  held  their  rights  by  contract 
with  the  parent  Government,  and  the  franchises  which  they  re 
ceive  were  the  conditions  upon  which  they  accepted  their  lands ; 
and  these  franchises  were  held  by  the  same  tenure,  secured  in 
the  same  instruments  with  their  deeds  for  their  lands  —  the  title 
to  the  one  as  indefeasible  as  the  title  of  the  other. 

The  Colony  of  Massachusetts  (then  embracing  the  territory 
of  the  future  States  of  Connecticut,  New  Hampshire  and  Ehode 
Island )  was  settled  under  compacts  of  the  emigrants  of  Novem 
ber  3d,  1620,  chartered  March  4th,  1629;  also,  by  charter  of 
January  15th,  1730,  with  charters  explanatory  and  confirmatory. 

New  Hamspshire  when  separated  in  a  distinct  colony  was 
chartered,  and  a  separate  Government  instituted  September 
18th,  1679. 

Ehode  Island  governed  her  people  under  her  separate  charter, 
granted  in  July  8th,  1662,  until  September  1742,  unchanged,  the 
original  charter  being  deemed  a  clear  guaranty  of  sovereignty. 

Connecticut,  withdrawing  from  the  Government  of  the  Colony 
of  Massachusetts,  instituted  her  Government  under  a  separate 
charter,  April  23d,  1662. 

New  York,  embracing  the  East  and  West  Jerseys,  was  gov 
erned  by  charter  granted  March  20th,  1664,  April  26th,  1664, 
June  24th,  1664,  and  newly  patented  on  February  9th,  1674. 

New  Jersey  was  chartered  March  3d,  1677,  and  surrendered 
the  charter  to  the  Crown  in  1702. 

Pennsylvania,  including  Delaware  in  its  provisions,  was  char 
tered  February  28th,  1681.  Granted  to  William  Penn. 

Maryland  was  chartered  June  20th,  1632. 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  43 

Virginia  was  chartered  April  10th;  1606,  May  23d,  1609, 
March  12th,  1612. 

Korth  Carolina,  including  the  territory  of  South  Carolina, 
was  chartered  March  20th,  1663,  and  June  30th,  1665. 

South  Carolina  was  separated  from  North  Carolina  in  1729. 

Georgia  was  chartered  on  June  9th,  1732. 

This  brief  epitome  of  the  character  of  the  States  and  their 
original  organization,  is  very  fully  explained  in  the  declaration 
of  Independence,  which  was  the  apology  offered  to  mankind  by 
these  chartered  and  separate  colonies  for  resisting  the  authority 
of  Great  Britain. 

The  powers  of  the  Colonies  are  aptly  set  forth  in  the  same 
comprehensive  paper.  In  the  whole  history  of  this  country, 
whilst  subject  to  law,  there  has  never  been  any  dispute  upon  this 
subject  regarding  the  powers  of  the  States :  <(  We,  therefore, 
the  Representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America,  in  General 
Congress  Assembled,  appealing  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the 
"World  for  the  rectitude  of  our  intentions,  do,  in  the  name  and  by 
the  authority  of  the  good  people  of  these  Colonies,  solemnly  pub 
lish  and  declare  that  these  United  Colonies  are  and  ought  of 
right  to  be  FREE  AND  INDEPENDENT  STATES.  *  *  *  * 
And  that  as  free  and  independent  States,  they  have  full  power  to 
levy  war,  conclude  peace,  contract  alliances,  establish  commerce, 
and  do  all  other  acts  and  things  which  independent  States  may 
of  right  do." 

By  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  the  true  character  of  the 
State  is  set  forth  in  terms  so  clear  that  argument  or  exposition  is 
inadmissible : 

"ARTICLE  I.  The  style,  of  this  Confederacy  shall  be  the 
United  States  of  America. 

"ART.  II.  Each  State  retains  its  sovereignty,  freedom  and  in 
dependence,  and  every  power  and  right  which  is  not  by  this  Con 
federation  expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States  in  Congress 
assembled. 

"  ART.  III.  The  said  States  hereby  severally  enter  into  a  firm 
league  of  friendship  with  each  other  for  their  common  defence, 
the  security  of  their  liberties,  and  their  mutual  and  general  wel 
fare,  binding  themselves  to  assist  each  other  against  all  force 
offered  to  or  attack  made  upon  them,  or  any  of  them,  on  account 
of  religion.  SOVEREIGNTY,  trade  or  any  pretense  whatever." 


44  CRIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

These  three  articles  of  the  second  bond  of  Union  use  the  very 
words  of  sovereignty,  independence,  &c.,  which  ignorance  has 
rendered  obnoxious  to  men  whose  only  claim  to  consideration  is 
their  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  plainest,  simplest  principles  of  free 
government. 

ART.  IX.  Amendment  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  declares  "  The  enumeration  in  the  Constitution  of  certain 
rights  shall  not  be  construed  to  deny  or  disparage  others  retained 
by  the  people. 

"  ART.  X.  The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by 
the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved 
,  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the  people." 

It  is  only  necessary  here  to  add  that  neither  the  sovereignty 
nor  the  independence  of  the  States  in  any  form,  or  by  any  impli 
cation  or  expression  was  in  the  Constitution  delegated  to  the 
United  States,  and  of  consequence  remains  with  the  States  and 
with  the  people.  But  no  persons  more  than  the  Republican 
party  believe  this ;  indeed  they  concede  it  when  they  attempt  to 
force  amendments  upon  it  by  force,  and  in  such  manner  as  will 
be  reprobated  by  any  court  of  authority.  It  seems  scarcely 
possible  in  the  face  of  the  history  of  our  jurisprudence,  and  the 
decisions  of  the  courts  of  the  country,  that  these  great  truths 
should  be  doubted,  and  an  attempt  at  illustrating  these  princi 
ples  would  be  the  folly  of  attempting  to  paint  the  sunbeams. 

But  the  philosophy  which  underlies  this  law  is  even  more 
striking  than  the  law  itself.  There  is  quite  as  much  propriety 
in  having  all  lands  in  one  farm,  all  workshops  in  one  building, 
all  religion  in  one  Church,  'or  all  families  in  one  house,  as  to 
place  all  people  under  one  Government,  or  all  the  States  under 
a  consolidated  system. 

The  people  of  the  States  are  of  different  origin,  different  re 
ligion,  different  manners,  customs  and  habits,  and  living  tinder 
different  climates,  with  entirely  different  vocations,  demanding 
different  regulations,  Such  is  this  diversity  that  an  attempt  to 
destroy  the  inherited  peculiarities  of  each  would  be  justly  regarded 
as  legitimate  grounds  of  revolution  or  war. 

The  sovereignties  of  the  States  rest  as  a  matter  of  contract 
upon  the  charters  entered  into  by  the  original  settlers.  But  the 
sovereignties  of  the  new  States  rest  upon  a  constitutional  pro- 


CRIMES   OP   TI^E   CIVIL   WAR.  45 

vision  which  pledges  that  the  United  States  shall  guarantee  to 
every  State  a  republican  form  of  government,  and  shall  protect 
each  of  them  against  invasion,  (but  certainly  docs  not  give  the 
right  to  invade  or  devastate  them,  and  thereby  destroy  a  repub 
lican  form  of  government,)  and  on  application  of  the  Legislature, 
or  of  the  Executive,  when  the  Legislature  cannot  be  convened, 
against  domestic  violence. 

The  five  new  States  made  out  of  the  bountiful  grant  of  Vir 
ginia  were  ceded  under  this  contract  of  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  before  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution.  "  And 
whenever  any  of  the  said  States  shall  have  sixty  thousand  free  in 
habitants  therein,  such  States  shall  be  admitted  by  its  Delegates 
into  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  on  an  equal  footing  with 
the  original  States  in  all  respects  whatever." 

In  the  treaty  by  which  the  Louisiana  purchase  was  ceded  to 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  : 

"  ART.  III.  The  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  territory  shall  be 
incorporated  in  the  Union  of  the  United  States,  and  admitted 
as  soon  as  possible,  according  to  the  principles  of  the  Federal 
Constitution,  to  the  enjoyment  of  all  of  the  rights,  advantages  and 
immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and  in  the  meantime 
they  shall  be  maintained  and  protected  in  the  free  enjoyment  of 
their  liberty,  property,  and  the  religion  which  they  profess." — 
Treaty  of  1803. 

In  the  cession  of  the  Floridas  and  other  Spanish  possessions 
to  the  United  States,  by  treaty  of  February  22,  1819,  Article 
five  and  six,  provides  that  "  The  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  terri 
tories  shall  be  secured  in  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion  with 
out  any  restrictions ;  and  all  those  who  may  desire  to  remove  to 
the  Spanish  dominions,  shall  be  permitted  to  sell  or  export  their 
effects  at  any  time  whatever,  without  being  subject,  in  either 
case,  to  duties. — (Art.  5.)  The  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  terri 
tories,  which  his  Catholic  Majesty  cedes  to  the  United  States, 
by  this  treaty,  shall  be  incorporated  in  the  Union  of  the  United 
States  as  soon  as  may  be  consistent  with  the  principles  of  the 
Federal  Constitution,  and  admitted  to  the  enjoyment  of  all  the 
privileges,  rights  and  immunities  of  the  United  States."  — 
(Art.  6.) 


46  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

The  Joint  Resolution  by  which  Texas  was  admitted  into  the 
Union  was  of  singular  significance,  as  it  had  been  an  independent 
State,  with  which  we  had  diplomatic  relations,  and  was  admitted 
in  the  following  language,  and  upon  the  following  terms, 
namely : 

"Resolved,  By  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the 
United  States  of  America,  in  Congress  assembled,  That  the  State 
of  Texas  shall  be  one,  and  is  hereby  declared  to  be  one  of  the 
States  of  the  United  States  of  America,  and  admitted  into  the 
Union  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  original  States,  in  all  re 
spects  whatever/' 

The  treaty  by  which  we  acquired  California  and  other  Mexican 
Territory  is  of  similar  import,  and  need  not  be  cited.  The 
States  made  from  Southern  Territory,  like  those  formed  of  Vir 
ginia  Territory,  had  the  same  general  rights  as  those  ceded  by 
treaties  with  foreign  powers. 

Upon  these  positive  compacts  the  people  settled  the  new  States. 
The  law  was  the  written  condition  of  the  settlement.  Self-gov 
ernment  was  the  sine  qui  non  of  American  emigration,  and  in 
vited  the  inhabitants  from  every  part  of  Europe  to  America. 
No  plantation  in  America  is  held  by  a  clearer  right,  or  more 
definite  and  indefeasible  title  than  are  the  sovereign  powers  of 
the  States. 

STATES  RIGHTS. 

We  must  abide  the  doctrines  of  the  first  Kentucky  resolution, 
because  its  abondonment  has  cost  us  the  loss  of  State  Courts, 
State  Legislatures,  State  Conventions,  legitimate  State  remedies, 
and  finally,  the  States  themselves  have  fallen  a  prey  to  our  sur 
render  of  their  sovereign  powers,  and  only  the  plain  and  simple 
truths  of  that  resolution,  vigorously  enforced  by  us,  can  offer 
to  the  people  of  the  smaller  and  remoter  States  any  remedy 
whatever  for  the  evils  they  suffer,  and  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon 
them  by  the  larger  and  richer  States  of  the  seaboard. 

This  resolution  has  not  the  purpose,  spirit  or  tendency  to  the 
dissolution  of  the  Union,  as  time  and  transpiring  events  now 
fully  demonstrate.  But  upon  the  contrary,  it  is  the  high  and 
holy  purpose  of  the  doctrine  to  preserve  the  Union  forever,  and 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAE.  47 

extend  the  area  of  its  glory  —  not  merely  by  the  physical  geog 
raphy  of  mountains,  rivers  and  lakes,  standing  armies,  tax- 
gatherers,  bank  monopolies  and  consolidated  capital,  but  by  that 
affection,  interest  and  devotion  in  the  States  and  the  people 
which  is  inspired  by  justice,  equality  and  free  government. 
The  Union  was  not  made  to  destroy,  but  to  protect  free  govern 
ment  and  all  of  the  natural  rights  of  the  people,  to  which  all 
government  must  be  subservient. 

The  Union  of  the  States  rests  upon  precisely  the  same  grounds 
as  does  that  more  sacred  relation  of  husband  and  wife.  But' 
no  law  given  could  apologize  to  modern  civilization  or  Christ 
ianity  for  the  attempt  to  bind  in  perpetual  legal  bonds  the  deli 
cate,  helpless  wife,  to  the  strong  and  cruel  husband.  Separation 
is  the  last  remaining  remedy  of  the  weak  against  the  strong,  of 
the  injured  against  the  aggressor.  By  common  consent  all  lib 
eral  governments  have  interposed  divorces  and  grant  alimonies, 
as  the  only  security  of  the  innocent  against  the  guilty. 

The  argument  is  not  good,  that  this  would  separate  all  families ; 
but  upon  the  contrary,  it  makes  those  who  would  retain  the 
blessings  of  the  union  sacred,  more  careful  of  their  mutual  rights 
and  more  diligent  to  consult  their  mutual  interest,  which  is  the 
very  object  of  the  solemn  union. 

Keligious  liberty,  with  all  of  the  hallowed  rights  of  the  con 
science,  draws  its  entire  support  from  civil  liberty.  But  every 
Christian,  after  the  most  solemn  administration  of  the  sacrament 
by  the  consecrated  officers  of  religion,  exercise  the  right  to 
withdraw  from  the  tyranny  of  church  government. 

What  is  the  Church  of  England,  the  Church  of  Luther,  the 
Church  of  Calvin,  and  the  Greek  Church  but  a  rebellion  against, 
and  secession  from,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church? 

What  is  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  but  a  rebellion 
against,  and  secession  from,  the  Church  of  England  ? 

What  is  the  Protestant  Methodist  Church  but  a  rebellion 
against,  and  secession  from,  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  ? 

What  is  the  Campbellite  Church  but  a  rebellion  against,  and 
secession  from,  the  Baptist  Church?  Or,  in  other  words,  every 
subsequent  Christian  Church,  in  the  full  and  free  exercise  of 
their  religious  liberty,  are  obnoxious  to  the  objection  of  rebellion 


48  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR. 

against,  and  secession  from,  the  parent  Church.  It  were  to  be 
desired  that  all  churches  should  be  one,  bound  in  the  chains  of 
blessedness  and  love.  But  since  they  will  not  be,  every  friend 
of  religious  liberty  demands  for  himself  and  for  his  Church,  the 
right  for  separate  organization.  Civil  liberty,  the  parent  of 
religious  liberty,  demands  the  same  rights  of  civil  communities 
which  are  awarded  to  religious  communities ;  and  as  the  church 
is  one  by  the  free  government  of  each  separate  organization  of 
its  members,  so  is  the  great  union  of  the  States  one  by  the  sepa 
rate  government  of  all  the  States,  as  provided  in  Mr.  Jefferson's 
resolution  of  1798.  Just  as  religion  in  centralization  is  the  pa 
rent  of  the  most  horrible  persecution,  so  is  civil  centralization 
the  source  of  the  most  cruel  despotism.  Now  is  the  time  for 
the  appeal  to  the  doctrine  of  this  resolution. 

The  wisdom  and  foresight  of  the  statesman  and  patriot  in  the 
assertion  of  the  rights  of  self-government  at  a  time  when  every 
American  was  perilling  his  life  to  maintain  them  inviolate,  was 
not  more  remarkable  than  that  when  at  the  very  time  every 
right  of  self-government  is  imperilled,  and  tyrants  are  taking 
advantage  of  their  temporary  power,  that  Democrats  should 
fear  to  assert,  enforce  and  defend  it,  when  it  is,  in  fact,  the  only 
barrier  that  stands  between  us  and  that  despotism  which  is 
sweeping  as  a  deadly  simoon  over  every  hamlet  of  the  most 
beautiful  country  of  the  continent,  leaving  desolation  in  its 
horrible  path,  and  marking  its  loathsome  trail  with  innocent 
blood,  and  enforcing  its  power  in  violation  of  law. 

The  overthrow  of  civil  government  in  America  was  the  only 
way  in  which  these  doctrines  could  be  overthrown. 

Upon  the  question  of  coercion  Mr.  Seward  says: 

"  The  Federal  Government  cannot  reduce  the  seceding  States 
to  obedience  by  conquest.'7  "  Only  an  imperial  despotic  gov 
ernment  can  subjugate  thoroughly  insurrectionary  members  of 
the  State."  "  This  Federal  Republican  system  is  the  very  one 
which  is  most  unfitted  for  such  a  labor/' 

The  early  attempts  to  fasten  odious  laws  upon  the  people  of 
the  States  by  the  General  Government  was  resisted  and  con 
demned  by  the  people  in  the  election  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  and 
the  repeal  of  the  alien  and  sedition  laws. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL,   WAE.  49 

The  doctrines  of  the  Government  were  well  established,  and 
could  not  have  been  overthrown  except  by  arbitrary  power. 

This  was  the  accepted  theory  upon  which  the  Government 
was  successfully  administered  for  three-quarters  of  a  century : 

"Resolved,  That  the  several  States  composing  the  United  States 
are  not  united  on  the  principle  of  unlimited  submission  to  their 
General  Government,  but  that  by  compact,  under  the  style  and 
title  of  a  Constitution  for  the  United  States,  and  of  amendments 
thereto,  they  constituted  a  General  Government,  for  special  pur 
poses —  delegated  to  that  Government  certain  definite  powers, 
reserving,  each  State  to  itself,  the  residuary  mass  of  right  to 
their  self-government ;  and  that  whenever  the  General  Govern 
ment  assumes  undelegated  power,  its  acts  are  unauthoritative, 
void,  and  of  no  force ;  That  to  this  compact  each  State  acceded 
as  a  State,  and  is  an  integral  party,  its  co-States  forming,  as  to 
itself,  the  other  party ;  that  the  Government  created  by  this 
compact  was  not  made  the  exclusive  or  final  judge  of  the  extent 
of  the  powers  delegated  to  itself,  since  that  would  have  made  its 
discretion,  and  not  the  Constitution,  the  measure  of  its  powers ; 
but  that,  as  in  all  other  cases  of  compact  among  persons  having 
no  common  judge,  each  party  has  an  equal  right  to  judge  for 
itself,  as  well  of  refractions  as  of  the  mode  and  measure  of  redress" 
— 1  he  First  Kentucky  Resolution  of  1798. 

This  doctrine  was  clearly  set  forth  by  Daniel  Webster  in  his 
declaration  that  this  is  not  a  national  government : 

"  The  Constitution  was  made  by  the  States,  and  not  by  the 
people  united.  It  should  therefore  read,  'We,  the  people  of  the 
States  United/  It  was  voted  for  by  the  States  in  the  Convention, 
submitted  to  the  people  of  each  State  severally,  and  became  the 
Constitution  only  of  the  States  adopting  it.  It  is  a  Federal 
Constitution,  and  not  a  National  Government."  —  Daniel  Webster. 

So  generally  conceded  was  the  theory  of  State  sovereignty, 
that  the  Chicago  Convention  which  nominated  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
the  Presidency,  stated  it  in  these  words  : 

<c Resolved,  1.  That  the  maintenance  inviolate  of  the  rights  of 
the  States,  and  especially  the  right  of  each  State  to  order  and 
control  its  own  domestic  institutions,  according  to  its  own  judg 
ment  exclusively,  is  essential  to  that  balance  of  power  on  which 
the  perfection  and  endurance  of  our  political  faith  depends/' 


50  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 


CHAPTER  V. 

INSTITUTING  RETROSPECTIVE  TEST  OATHS  TO  DESTROY  THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE 
ELECTIVE  FRANCHISE. 

TEST  oaths  in  their  mildest  forms  have  always  been  odious  to 
either  a  free  or  honest  people,  as  the  most  ready  means  of  ensla 
ving  them  and  corrupting  their  public  officers. 

In  the  new  system  among  us  the  test  oath  assumed  a  triple  form 
of  enormity  against  Christianity,  civilization,  and  humanity. 

These  test  oaths  are  retrospective  and  ex  post  facto,  unconsti 
tutional  and  monstrous.  This  is  the  ulterior  limit  to  which  des 
potism  itself  may  travel.  Under  this  cover  every  crime  may  hide 
in  the  shadow  of  power,  and  every  virtue  may  be  crushed  out 
which  seeks  protection  in  the  temple  of  Justice. 

The  unreasonable  crime  of  the  Roman  tyrant  who  wrote  his 
laws  in  small  letters  and  placed  them  out  of  sight  of  the  people, 
is  exceeded  by  the  Congress  which  legislates  upon  the  actions  of 
the  past;  imposes  Constitutional  amendments  to  protect  infamous 
criminals  from  just  punishments  due  to  past  crimes  against  ex 
isting  laws. 

This  test  oath  is  a  crime  against  humanity,  which  compels 
men  to  give  testimony  against  themselves,  under  pains  and 
penalty  of  perjury,  with  disfranchisement  upon  the  one  hand 
and  the  State's  prison  on  the  other. 

No  such  power  can  be  reposed  in  courts  or  legislatures.  The 
common  law  which  came  down  to  us  laden  with  the  learning, 
liberty,  and  civilization  of  centuries,  revolts  at  the  crime  of 
forcing  a  man  to  testify  against  himself.  His  attorney,  physician, 
or  minister,  is  not  allowed  to  reveal  professional  confidence 
committed  to  him.  This  precaution  is  a  necessity  to  the  integ 
rity  and  success  of  the  profession  conceded  everywhere  and  never 
called  in  question  before 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR.  51 

It  is  in  violation  of  every  theory,  maxim  and  truism  of  our 
government,  against  which  the  united  voices  of  philosophers, 
philanthropists,  poets,  heroes  and  statesmen  of  all  Christendom 
come  up  from  the  grave  and  down  from  heaven  with  one  universal 
denunciation. 

How  can  a  man  subscribe  to  a  test  oath  to  support  the  Con 
stitution,  when  the  test  oath  is  the  most  flagrant  violation  of  that 
instrument  ever  suggested  by  the  evil  genius  of  tyrants,  since  the 
bloody  reigns  of  the  English  bigots? 

This  has  been  the  chief  instrument  of  the  authors  of  our  debt, 
to  commit  the  government  to  the  hands  of  a  meagre  minority  of 
the  lowest,  most  abandoned  and  abominable  of  the  population  of 
the  invaded  States. 

Learning  from  Congresa  the  States  newly  organized  and 
created  by  its  factions,  introduced  test  oaths  to  control  State  gov 
ernments  in  the  interest  of  monopolies,  after  disfranchising  the 
people ;  test  oaths  were  administered  to  attorneys  to  drive  able 
men  from  the  bar, 'whilst  ministers  of  the  Gospel  were  not  al 
lowed  to  perform  ceremonies  of  marriage,  bury  the  dead,  baptize 
families,  or  preach  the  word  of  God  without  taking  this  blas 
phemous  oath  ;  and  any  drunken  magistrate  might  arrest  him  in 
delinquency.  To  carry  the  schools  with  the  bar  and  the  pulpit 
in  the  interest  of  the  Funding  System,  schoolmasters  were  sub 
jected  to  the  same  oaths.  Sisters  of  Charity  in  Missouri  were 
arrested  like  felons  for  teaching  orphan  children  without  gov 
ernment  permission,  and  taken  off  by  beastly  constabularies, 
when  engaged  in  the  very  act  of  feeding  the  hungry  and'visiting 
the  sick. 

Test  oaths  were  the  natural  and  necessary  accompaniments  of 
the  thumbscrew,  boot  and  torture.  They  are  children  of  dark 
ages  that  cannot  live  in  separation. 

On  the  6th  day  of  April,  1789,  in  the  House  of  Representa 
tives,  Messrs.  White,  Madison,  Trumbull,  Gilman  and  Cadwal- 
lader,  reported  the  following  form  of  oath  to  be  taken  by  the 
members  of  Congress,  according  to  the  requirements  of  the  Con 
stitution  : 

"  I,  A.  B.,  a  Representative  of  the  United  States  in  the  Con 
gress  thereof,  do  solemnly  swear  or  affirm  (as  the  case  may  be,) 


52  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

in  the  presence  of  Almighty  God,  that  I  will  support  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States.     So  help  me  God." 

This  form  remained  unchanged  until  the  beginning  of  the  pres 
ent  usurpation. 

The  oaths  of  supremacy,  abjuration  and  allegiance  made  with 
all  possible  legal  severity  to  exclude  Catholics  and  Quakers  from 
the  polls,  were  not  retrospective. 

The  great  oifer  of  repentance  under  the  Christian  system,  is 
extended  to  the  worst  offenders.  The  highest  hope  of  the  patriot 
is  that  all  men  shall  renew  their  allegiance  and  the  unhappy 
past  be  forgotten ;  and  oblivion  kindly  afford  a  sepulchre  for  the 
misery,  crime  and  insanity  of  the  five  years  which  have  beclouded 
the  most  brilliant  era  of  the  haman  race. 

The  Marquis  do  Condorcet's  defence  of  Voltaire — dissimulation 
to  save  him  from  the  penalties  of  the  law  was  used  in  these  remark 
able  words :  "  The  necessity  of  lying  in  order  to  disavow  any 
work,  is  an  extremity  equally  repugnant  to  conscience  and  noble 
ness  of  character,  but  the  crime  lies  with  those  unjust  men  who 
render  such  an  avowal  necessary  to  the  safety  of  him  whom  they 
force  to  it.  If  you  have  made  a  crime  of  what  is  not  one ;  if  by 
absurd  or  arbitrary  laws  you  have  infringed  the  natural  rights 
which  all  men  have  not  only  to  form  an  opinion  but  to  render  it 
public,  then  you  deserve  to  lose  the  right  which  every  man  has 
of  hearing  the  truth  from  the  mouth  of  another  —  a  right  which 
is  the  sole  basis  of  that  rigorous  obligation  not  to  lie.  If  it  is 
not  permitted  to  deceive  the  reason,  is  that  to  deceive  any  one,  is 
to  do  him  a  wrong  or  expose  yourself  to  do  him  one ;  but  a  wrong 
supposes  a  right,  and  no  one  has  the  right  of  seeking  to  secure 
himself  the  benefit  of  an  injustice." 

It  is  a  crime  to  apologize  for  liars  who  avow  opinions  which 
they  do  not  hold,  still  more  to  defend  those  who  take  false  oaths, 
but  the  burden  of  the  falsehood  or  perjury  rests  upon  those  who 
create  the  test  oaths  which  make  men  formally  abjure  their  inher 
ent  rights. 

They  are  accessories  of  perjury  who  make  perjury  a  necessity 
of  life. 

The  Catholic  member  who  took  the  test  oath  was  not  so  guilty 
of  pei jury  as  the  tyrant  who  assumed  dominion  over  the  secret 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  53 

thoughts  of  the  soul,  and  rudely  interfered  between  man  and  his 
Maker,  and  thrusts  his  presence  into  the  avenues  of  freedom  as 
a  hindrance  to  its  existence. 

The  law  maker  who  forces  men  to  lie  in  self-preservation,  has 
no  right  to  hear  the  truth. 

We  must  always  distinguish  between  the  crime  and  the  crim 
inal.  When  the  highwayman  has  been  killed  in  the  attempt  to 
plunder,  he  is,  notwithstanding  his  misfortune,  the  criminal. 

If  the  burglar  enters  your  house  and  demands  your  money, 
you  are  under  no  obligation  to  tell  him  where  it  is.  You  have 
a  right  to  mislead  him,  because  he  has  no  right  to  know. 

You  are  no  more  to  be  ensnared  by  the  wiles  of  an  enemy 
than  to  be  poisoned  by  the  sweetmeats  of  the  incendiary.  Ex 
torted  oaths  to  make  you  a  particeps  criminis  in  your  own  de 
struction  or  degradation,  cannot  bind  you. 

An  oath  is  the  most  solemn  sanction  that  can  be  given,  by 
invocation  of  the  Deity  it  is  always  voluntary,  and  must  be  kept 
sacredly,  for  the  foundation  of  society  rests  upon  it. 

Only  the  most  intolerant  bigots  and  besotted  atheists  create 
test  oaths,  and  no  government  outlives  them  which  submits  to 
their  exaction. 

The  test  oath  is  but  one  of  a  family  of  the  most  formidable 
and  ferocious  wild  beasts  that  prey  upon  society.  The  whole 
brood  have  been  let  loose  upon  us  at  once.  Questions  which 
have  been  settled  for  centuries  in  favor  of  liberty,  have  been 
reopened  in  favor  of  despotism. 

The  whole  machinery  now  employed  is  identical  with  that  of 
the  Florentine  Republic,  when  one  party  expelled  the  other  as 
in  turn  they  regained  or  usurped  power;  until  the  tenure  of 
every  sacred  right  vacillated  with  the  caprice,  passion  and  interest 
of  the  faction  successful  for  the  moment. 

The  fruits  are  upon  us.  Assassination  of  private  citizens  by 
public  officers  ;  the  exaction  of  test  oaths ;  the  exclusion  of  citi 
zens  from  the  polls ;  then  their  exclusion  from  the  Courts. 
Government  by  brute  force  merely  always  have  and  always  will 
precede  revolution,  and  be  followed  by  the  wildest  anarchy  or 
the  most  heartless  despotism. 


54  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

DESTRUCTION  OF  FAIR  AND  FREE  ELECTION. 

THE  ELECTIONS  DO  NOT  BIND  THE  PEOPLE  IN  THE  CONSE 
QUENT  LEGISLATION  OF  THOSE  WHO  ARE  RETURNED  AS  LEG 
ISLATORS. 

"An  election  in  its  most  usual  acceptation, signifies  the  choice 
which  several  persons  collectively,  make  of  a  person  to  fill  an 
office  or  place." 

"  These  should  be  free  and  uninfluenced,  either  by  hope  or 
fear." 

"  And  to  render  this  freedom  as  perfect  as  possible,  electors 
are  generally  exempted  from  arrest  in  all  cases  except  treason, 
felony,  or  breach  of  the  peace,  during  their  attendance  on  elections; 
and  in  going  to  and  returning  from  them.  And  provisions  are 
made  by  law  in  several  States  to  prevent  the  interference  or  ap 
pearance  of  the  military,  on  the  election  ground." 

"  And  as  it  is  essential  to  the  very  being  of  parliament,  that 
elections  should  be  absolutely  free,  all  undue  influence  whatever 
upon  the  electors,  is  illegal  and  strongly  prohibited.  As  soon, 
therefore,  as  the  time  and  place  of  election  within  counties  or 
boroughs  are  fixed,  all  soldiers  quartered  in  the  place  are  to  re 
move  at  least  one  day  before  the  election,  to  the  distance  of  two 
miles  or  more,  and  not  to  return  till  one  day  after  the  poll  is 
ended,  except  in  the  liberty  of  Westminster,  or  other  residence 
of  the  royal  family,  in  respect  of  his  majesty's  guards,  and  in 
fortified  places :  8  Geo.  2,  c.  30,  §  3.  Riots,  likewise,  have  been 
frequently  determined  to  make  an  election  void.  By  vote,  also 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  no  Lord  of  Parliament  or  Lord 
Lieutenant  of  a  county  hath  any  right  to  interfere  in  the  elec 
tion  of  commoners;  and  by  statute,  the  Lord  Warden  of  the 
Cinque  Ports  shall  not  recommend  any  members  therefor.  If 
any  officer  of  the  excise,  customs,  stamps  or  certain  other 
branches  of  the  revenue,  presume  to  intermeddle  in  elections,  by 
persuading  any  voter  or  dissuading  him,  he  forfeits  one  hundred 
pounds,  and  is  disabled  to  hold  any  office,  consistently  with  the 
same  principle ;  also  it  has  been  decided  that  a  wager  between 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  55 

two  electors  upon  the  success  of  their  respective  candidates,  is 
illegal  and  void,  for  were  it  permitted,  it  would  manifestly  cor 
rupt  the  freedom  of  elections." — 1  T.  R.  55. 

Indeed,  however,  the  electors  of  one  branch  of  the  legislature 
may  be  secured  from  any  undue  influence,  from  either  of  the 
other  two,  and  from  all  external  violence  and  compulsion.  The 
greatest  danger  is  that  in  which  themselves  co-operate  by  the  in 
famous  practice  of  bribery  and  corruption  to  prevent ;  which  it 
is  enacted  that  no  candidate  shall,  after  the  date  (usually  called 
the  teste)  of  the  writs ;  or  after  the  ordering  of  the  writs,  that  is 
after  the  signing  of  the  warrant  of  the  chancellor  for  issuing  the 
writs,  (Sim  165)  or  after  any  vacancy,  give  any  money  or  enter 
tainment  to  his  electors,  or  promise  to  give  any,  either  to  par 
ticular  persons  or  to  the  place  in  general,  in  order  to  his  being 
elected  on  pain  of  being  incapable  to  serve  that  place  in  parlia 
ment  :  that  is,  incapable  of  serving  upon  that  election  by  7  and 

8  W.  3,  c.  4,  commonly  called  the  Treating  Act.     It  was  decided 
by  one  committee,  that  treating  vacates  the  election  only ;  and 
that    the  candidate  was  disqualified  from  being  re-elected  and 
sitting  upon  a  second  return..    3  Lud.  455.     But  a  contrary  de 
termination  was  made  by  the  Southwark  committee,  in  the  first 
session  of  the  Parliament  called  in  1796;  who  declared  a  candi 
date  disqualified  on  the  ground  of  his  having  treated  at  a  former 
election,  which  was  declared  void  for  such  treating.     It  has  been 
supposed  that  the  payment  of  travelling  expenses  and  a  compen 
sation  for  loss  of  time,  were  not  treating  or  bribery  within  this 
or  any  other  statute ;  and  a  bill  passed  the  House  of  Commons, 
to  subject  such  case  to  the  penalties  imposed  by  2  Geo.  2,  c.  24, 
upon  persons  guilty  of  bribery.     But  this  bill  was  rejected  in 
the  House  of  Lords  by  the  opposition  of  Lord  Mansfield,  who 
strenuously  maintained  that  the  bill  was  superfluous ;  that  such 
conduct  by  the  laws  in  being  was  clearly  illegal ;  and  subject  in 
a  court  of  law  to  the  penalty  of  bribery.     2  Lud.  67. 

To  guard  against  gross  and  flagrant  acts  of  bribery,  it  is  en 
acted  by  the  2  Geo.  2,  c.  24,  (explained  and  enlarged  by  the 

9  Geo.  2,  c.  38  and  16   Geo.  3,  c.  11)  that  if  any  money,  gift, 
office,  employment,  or  reward  be  given  or  promised  to  be  given 
to  any  voter,  at  any  time  in  order  to  influence  him  to  give  or 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

withhold  his  vote,  as  well  as  he  that  takes  as  he  that  offers  such 
a  bribe,  forfeits  £500,  and  is  forever  disabled  from  voting  at  any 
election  for  a  member  of  Parliament  and  holding  any  office  in 
any  corporation  ;  unless  before  conviction,  he  will  discover  some 
other  offender  of  the  same  kind,  and  then  he  is  indemnified  for 
his  own  offence.  But  these  statues  do  not  create  any  incapacity 
of  sitting  in  the  House;  that  depends  solely  on  the  Treating  Act 
already  mentioned. 

It  has  been  held  that  it  is  bribery  if  a  candidate  gives  an  elec 
tor  money  to  vote  for  him,  though  he  afterwards  votes  for 
another.  3  Burr  1235.  And  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  it 
would  also  be  bribery  in  the  voter,  for  the  words  of  the  statute 
clearly  makes  the  offence  mutual.  And  it  has  been  decided  that 
such  vote  will  not  be  available  to  the  person  to  whom  it  may 
afterwards  be  given  gratuitously ;  though  the  propriety  of  this  de 
cision  has  been  questioned  by  respectable  authority.  2  Doug.  416. 
An  instance  is  given  in  4  Doug.  S66,  of  an  action  in  which 
twenty-two  penalties  to  the  amount  of  XI  1,000  were  recovered 
against  one  defendant. 

By  the  49  Geo.  3,  c.  118,  for  better  securing  the  independence 
and  purity  of  Parliament  by  preventing  the  procuring  or  obtain 
ing  seats  in  Parliament  by  corrupt  practices ;  after  reciting  or 
promising  any  gift,  office,  place  or  gratuity,  to  procure  the  return 
of  a  member,  if  not  made  for  the  use  of  a  returning  officer,  or 
votes  is  not  bribery  within  the  meaning  of  the  act,  (2  Geo.  2,  c. 
24,)  but  that  such  gifts  or  promises  are  contrary  to  the  ancient 
usage,  right,  and  freedom  of  election,  and  contrary  to  the  laws 
and  the  Constitution.  The  following  penalties  are  imposed  on 
all  persons  giving  or  promising,  and  on  all  persons  giving  or 
receiving  any  sum  of  money,  gift  or  reward,  upon  any  engage 
ment  to  procure  or  endeavor  to  procure,  the  election  or  return 
of  a  member  of  parliament ;  viz :  on  the  party  giving  or  prom 
ising  if  not  returned  as  a  member,  £1000;  and  on  the  party 
giving  or  promising,  or  privy  if  not  returned  a  member,  forfeit 
ure  of  his  seat ;  and  on  the  party  receiving,  forfeiture  of  the 
money  received,  and  also  £500  to  be  recovered  by  any  party 
suing  for  the  same  in  the  Superior  Courts  of  Record  in  Great 
Britain  or  Ireland.  §  1.  The  act  contains  a  proviso  for  a  any 


CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  57 

legal  expense  bonafide  incurred  at  or  concerning  such  election." 
§  2.  Penalties  are  also  imposed  on  any  persons  who  shall  pro 
cure  or  promise  to  give,  or  procure  any  office,  place  or  employ 
ment  to  any  person  upon  any  express  contract,  to  procure  a  seat 
in  Parliament,  viz :  on  the  member  returned  (so  giving  or  pro 
curing,  or  promising  or  privy,)  loss  of  his  seat ;  on  the  receiver 
of  the  office,  forfeiture,  incapacity  and  £500 ;  and  on  any  per 
son,  (holding  any  office  under  the  Crown,)  who  shall  give  any 
office,  &c.,  upon  any  such  account,  £1000.  §  3.  Actions  on  this 
statute  must  be  brought  within  two  years.  §  4. 

Beside  the  penalties  thus  imposed  by  the  Legislature,  bribery 
is  a  crime  at  common  law,  and  punishable  by  indictment  or  in 
formation  ;  though  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  will  not,  in  ordi 
nary  cases,  grant  an  information  within  two  years ;  the  time 
within  which  an  action  may  be  brought  for  the  penalties,  under 
the  statute.  3  Burr  1335,  1337.  But  this  rule  does  not  effect  a 
prosecution  by  indictment  or  information  by  the  Attorney  Gen 
eral,  who  in  one  case  was  ordered  by  the  House  to  prosecute  two 
persons  who  had  procured  themselves  to  be  returned  by  bribery. 
They  were  convicted  and  sentenced  by  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench  to  pay  each  a  fine  of  1,000  marks,  and  to  be  imprisoned 
six  months. —  4  Doug.,  292. 

In  order  to  diminish  the  expenses  of  elections,  it  is  enacted  by 
7  and  8  Geo.  c.  37,  that  no  person  elected  to  serve  in  Parliament 
shall  after  the  teste  of  the  writ  of  summons  or  after  the  place 
becomes  vacant  before  his  election,  by  himself  or  his  agent,  give 
or  allow  to  any  voter  or  to  any  inhabitant  of  city,  county  town, 
etc.,  any  cockade,  ribbon,  or  other  mark  of  distinction. 

Great  abuses  have  existed  in  several  corporations  by  the  appli 
cation  of  the  corporate  property  for  electioneering  purposes  and 
towards  the  expenses  of  the  favored  candidates.  The  2  and  3 
W.  4,  c.  69,  was  passed  to  restrain  such  application  in  future, 
and  a  variety  of  provisions  are  enacted  for  that  purpose ;  and 
members  of  corporations  offending  against  the  act  are  declared 
guilty  of  a  misdemeanor. 

Undue  influence  being  thus  endeavoured  to  be  effectually 
guarded  against)  the  election  is  to  be  proceeded  with  on  the  day 
appointed :  the  Sheriff  or  other  returning  officer  first  taking  an 


58  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

oath  against  bribery  and  for  the  due  execution  of  his  office.  As 
soon  as  the  returning  officer  lias  taken  this  oath,  he  must  read, 
or  cause  to  be  read,  the  Bribery  Act,  under  the  penalty  of  £50. 
The  candidates  likewise,  if  required,  must  swear  to  their  quali 
fication,  or  their  election  shall  be  void. —  To'inl'm's  Law  Diction 
ary,  Vol.  3,  page  50  and  51. 

Fraud  vitiates  all  contracts,  but  none  more  clearly  than  the 
issue  of  an  election. 

For  the  last  five  years  in  this  country  every  conceivable  mean 
ing  of  the  word,  election,  has  been  outraged.  The  work  of 
coercion  commenced  with  the  elections  in  Maryland,  after  the 
outbreak  of  the  civil  war.  Cavalry  surrounded  the  polls  to 
intimidate  voters :  when  this  failed,  judges  of  the  election  were 
arrested ;  sheriffs  and  their  posses  were  driven  away  for  executing 
the  laws.  I  cite  but  an  instance.  On  the  day  before  the  election, 
in  1863,  under  the  order  of  Schenck,  cavalry  and  infantry  went 
to  Salisbury,  scattered  through  the  counties  of  Somerset  and 
Worcester,  to  spread  terror  among  the  people.  The  proclamation 
of  Gov.  Bradford  maintaining  the  law,  was  set  at  defiance,  and 
military  vagabonds  joined  in  an  election  of  representatives,  to 
ruin  the  people  and  destroy  the  State.  When  men  of  character 
were  elected,  they  were  forced  to  resign  upon  pain  of  imprison 
ment.  Such  was  the  course  of  Senator  Holland,  elected  by  eight 
hundred  majority,  from  Dorchester  County. 

For  refusing  to  resign,  Waters  was  dragged  to  prison,  subjected 
to  every  indignity  of  provost  marshals,  jailers,  and  the  cruelties 
suggested  by  the  shallow  ingenuity  of  Wallace,  the  commander. 

This  was  the  style  and  animus  of  the  Congressional  election 
from  the  Eastern  shore  to  the  Youghiogheny.  So  monstrous 
and  so  common  were  these  things,  that  their  detail  would  be 
voluminous. 

In  Delaware,  the  elections  employed  force  in  deterring  voters 
from  the  polls  by  fraud,  in  substituting  false  returns  and  forged 
votes.  Such  were  the  elections  under  Schenck  on  all  of  the 
] Eastern  shore. 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  59 


THE  FARCE  OF  THE  LATE   ELECTION  IN  DELAWARE. 

In  a  late  discussion  in  the  United  States  Senate,  Mr.  Saulsbury, 
(Opposition,)  of  Delaware,  said : 

"  I  have  seen  the  armed  soldiery  of  the  '  powers  that  be '  at 
the  polls,  and  by  positive  interference  drive  dozens  of  voters  away. 
This  was  in  my  own  State  (Delaware)  no  longer  ago  than  last 
November.  The  majority  of  the  voters  of  the  State  of  Delaware 
at  the  late  election  were  not  allowed  to  cast  their  votes  at  the 
polls  because  they  did  not  approve  of  this  Administration.  He 
would  ask,  Has  there  ever  been  any  attempt  by  that  State  to 
violate  any  law  of  this  Government  ?  Has  that  State  ever  given 
any  encouragement  by  any  act  or  deed  to  those  in  revolt  against 
the  Government  ?  He  defied  any  Senator  on  this  floor  to  show 
where  the  State  of  Delaware  had  attempted  to  tear  down  the 
fabric  of  this  glorious  Union,  and  yet  the  party  in  power,  finding 
that  they  could  not  send  representatives  of  their  own  choice  to 
the  other  branch  of  the  National  Legislature,  allow  a  military 
man  to  publish  an  order  that  *  no  citizen  should  vote  unless  he 
should  take  an  oath  such  as  he  prescribed/  The  hero  of  a  military 
operation  on  a  railroad  can  make  his  will  the  supreme  law  of 
voting  and  say,  '  You  shall  not  vote  unless  you  become  subject 
to  my  will/  This  was  freedom  of  election,  indeed  !  The  hero 
of  the  blood-stained  field  of  Vienna  sent  his  military  forces  to 
every  election  poll  in  the  State  of  Delaware,  authorizing  them 
beforehand  what  to  do,  and  saying  to  the  people  what  they  must 
do.  A  sovereign  State  thus  became  a  plaything  in  the  hands  of 
a  military  officer,  who  has  never  distinguished  himself  in  any 
way  in  the  service  of  his  country." 

In  New  Hampshire,  where  physical  force  was  unnecessary,  arbi 
trary  power  was  interposed  in  a  style  of  which  the  following  is 
a  condensed  specimen  : 

"AVAR  DEPARTMENT,  ADJUTANT  GENERAL'S  OFFICE,  ) 
Washington,  March  13,  1863.          / 

SPECIAL  ORDER,  No.  34. 

By  the  direction  of  the  President,  the  following  officers  are 
hereby  dismissed  the  service  of  the  United  States:  Lieutenant 
A.  J.  Edgerly,  4th  New  Hampshire  Volunteers,  for  circulating 


60  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAK. 

Copperhead  tickets,  and  doing  all  in  his  power  to  promote  the 
success  of  the  rebel  cause  in  his  State. 
By  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War. 

L.  THOMAS,  Adft  Gen. 
lo  the  Governor  of  New  Hampshire." 

The  elections  in  Kentucky  were  the  most  horrible  pretences 
for  enormous  crime.  The  sickening  butcheries  of  Payne,  who 
dug  graves  in  advance  to  bury  men  as  they  might  chance  to  go 
by,  shocked  the  people  and  drove  them  from  the  polls. 

Payne  was  followed  by  Burbridge  who,  to  a  contemptible  im 
becility,  added  a  shameless  brutal  instinct. 

In  his  treatment  of  his  neighbors,  Burbridge  vied  with  the 
viper  that  eats  its  way  into  the  world  through  the  vitals  of  its 
mother.  With  a  bloody  cruelty  at  which  savages  shudder,  he 
drove  the  people  from  the  polls. 

At  elections  for  members  of  Congress,  old  and  respectable 
citizens  were  beaten  away  by  military  mobs,  for  offering  an  of 
fensive  ballot;  and  tied  up  by  the  thumbs  to  limbs  of  trees  for 
daring  to  express  an  opinion  at  the  polls.  Judge  Duval  was 
expelled  the  State  by  military  force,  because  lie  was  a  candidate 
for  an  office  he  had  honorably  filled  for  many  years  before. 

New  oaths  were  administered  at  will  and  passion ;  military 
orders  were  issued  to  enforce  arbitrary  power ;  squads  of  soldiers 
were  let  loose  upon  the  polls  in  one  place  and  would  drive  voters 
from  other  places,  voting  over  and  over  again. 

The  frauds  were  systematized  and  forces  disciplined.  Fur 
loughs  and  their  extension  were  granted  to  soldiers  upon  condi 
tions  disgraceful  to  their  manly  vocation  and  humiliating  to 
manhood  itself,  that  they  might  interfere  in  elections. 

The  old  tools  of  despotism  were  found  to  be  none  the  less 
powerful  because  they  had  been  employed  before ;  nor  the  less 
dangerous  because  they  were  cruel,  and  employed  other  nnscru- 
pulous  instruments  with  such  covering  of  fraud  and  deceit  as 
would  escape  detection  in  the  act. 

Those  entrusted  with  this  wicked  work  were  cold,  cunning, 
sly  and  cruel,  who  measured  their  work  by  the  necessities  of 
success. 

In  all  of  the  States  where  military  force  dare  not  be  employed,  a 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  61 

system  of  ballot  fraud  was  practiced  which  swept  the  elections 
without  regard  to  the  numbers  polled.  Wherever  the  party  in 
power  had  control  of  the  election  board,  they  would  carefully  cal 
culate  the  numbers  necessary  to  success  on  the  whole  county,  or 
would  greatly  augment  former  majorities  by  this  simple  plan. 
The  board  would  adjourn  for  meals,  and  during  the  recess,  some 
one  secreted  for  the  purpose,  remaining  in  the  room  with  a  key  to 
the  ballot-box,  would  unlock  it  and  take  out  as  many  Democratic 
tickets  as  were  necessary  to  secure  the  desired  majority,  and  sub 
stitute  them  with  Republican  ballots. 

This  was  generally  done  in  some  remote  room  whither  the 
ballot-box  was  taken,  where  detection  was  avoidable. 

These  frauds  were  so  flagrant  as  to  be  demonstrable. 

In  some  places  the  majority  appeared  greater  than  the  actual 
vote  should  have  been  in  a  fair  election  ;  in  other  places  the  vote 
embraced  more  than  the  entire  male  population.  The  soldiers 
frequently  voted  without  regard  to  their  nativity  or  domicile, 
and  then  voted  many  times  the  same  day  at  different  precincts. 

Money  was  employed  to  buy  votes  where  muskets  failed  to 
intimidate  voters. 

Manufactories  commanded  the  votes  of  their  employees  with 
the  same  facility  that  the  coachman  reins  his  horse,  or  the  shep 
herd  herds  his  fold. 

The  daily  bread  of  thousands  was  withheld  as  the  price  of 
their  liberty. 

The  banks  employed  the  double  thong  of  usury  and  protest 
with  their  creditors,  to  compel  them  to  sustain  the  funded-banking 
system. 

The  political  churches  were  pressed  into  the  same  unholy  ser 
vice  by  the  rich  pewholders ;  and  the  minister  inveighed  in  terrible 
style  against  his  political  opponents,  and  terrified  the  poorer  part 
of  his  congregation  to  vote  with  the  rich  and  sustain  monopolies 
with  fanaticism,  under  no  less  sanction  than  the  hopes  of  heaven, 
the  terrors  of  hell,  and  immediate  excommunication  from  the 
church. 

Landlords  made  their  tenants  vote  their  tickets  under  penalty 
of  dispossession ;  and  in  the  rural  districts,  executed  their  purpose 
with  severity. 


62  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Such  was  the  combinations  of  force  and  fraud  on  the  elections, 
where  fanaticism  and  falsehood  had  failed  to  secure  a  controlling 
influence  over  the  floating  vote  of  the  county,  which  is  always 
necessary  to  the  permanent  security  of  tyrants  in  ill-gotten 
power. 

To  cover  up  the  enormity  of  these  outrages  pretences  were 
made  of  fears  of  intention  upon  the  part  of  the  people  to  interfere 
with  elections,  which  are  explained  by  the  following  order  from 
Gen.  Hooker: 

HEADQUARTERS  NORTHERN  DEPARTMENT,  1 
Cincinnati,  October  27,  1864.          j 

CIRCULAR. 

The  commander  of  this  department  has  received  information 
that  it  is  the  intention  of  a  large  body  of  men  on  the  northern 
frontier  on  each  side  of  the  line,  open  on  one  side,  and  in  disguise, 
on  the  other,  to  so  organize  at  the  ensuing  National  Election,  as 
to  interfere  with  the  integrity  of  the  election,  and  when  in  their 
power  to  cast  illegal  votes ;  in  fact,  in  any  way  interfere  with  the 
honest  expression  of  the  electors. 

In  view  of  the  foregoing  facts,  it  is  made  the  duty  of  all  officers 
of  the  Government,  both  civil  and  military,  as  well  as  loyal 
citizens,  to  guard  well  the  integrity  of  the  ballot-box. 

All  military  officers,  including  Provost  Marshals  and  their 
assistants,  will  be  held  to  strict  accountability  for  the  adoption 
of  such  measures  within  their  districts  or  commands  as  will  not 
only  prevent  illegal  voting,  but  to  arrest  and  bring  to  justice  all 
who  attempt  such  voting,  or  endeavor  to  prevent  the  honest  ex 
ercise  of  the  elective  franchise. 

The  citizens  and  civil  authorities  of  the  towns  and  cities  on 
the  Northern  frontier  are  particularly  requested  to  give  any  in 
formation  they  may  have,  or  may  from  time  to  time  receive,  to 
the  Provost  Marshals  or  military  authorities,  whose  duty  it  is 
to  inform  the  nearest  Provost  Marshal  General  or  other  military 
authority,  and  to  take  measures  to  arrest  and  confine  any  and  all 
connected  with  such  organizations.  The  late  raids  on  the  Lakes 
and  in  New  England  are  ample  evidence  that  neither  life  nor 
property  are  safe. 

All  Provost  Marshals  and  their  assistants,  and  all  military 
commanders,  will  take  measures  to  obtain  and  report  at  once 
any  information  that  may  lead  to  the  prevention  of  this  inter- 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  C3 

ference  with  the  rights  of  the  people,  or  aid  in  the  arrest  and  pun 
ishment  of  the  offenders  :  they  from  time  to  time  will  report  by 
telegraph  any  new  facts. 

Local  authorities  will  receive  all  the  aid  within  the  control  of 
the  military  commander. 

By  command  of 

MAJOR  GENERAL  HOOKER. 
Official : 

Such  was  the  spirit  of  the  elections  and  the  manner  of  holding 
them. 

Under  this  bold  and  wicked  farce,  Charles  Upton,  an  Ohio 
adventurer,  and  William  E.  Lehman,  quite  as  strange  a  bird  in 
old  Virginia,  by  a  few  vagabond  civilians  and  drunken  soldiers, 
were  authorized  to  represent  a  community  of  a  million  of  people 
to  whom  they  were  strangers,  and  fasten  a  debt  of  thousands  of 
millions  of  dollars  upon  the  country. 

Such  elections  are  ipso  facto  void.  Would  any  bench  of  jud 
ges  that  ever  sat  in  chancery  over  the  affairs  of  men,  allow  a  tax 
sale  made  under  a  law,  which  worked  a  forfeiture  for  delin 
quency,  if  such  law  had  been  enacted  by  men  thus  elected. 

If  such  farces  are  to  be  accounted  elections,  what  security 
have  we  that  monarchy  may  not  supplant  our  republican  form 
of  government.  Yfhat  security  have  we  for  religious  liberty  ? 
What  security  have  the  poor  against  the  combinations  of  wealth, 
influence  and  political  power,  which  may  grind  them  to  the 
earth  ?  Upon  the  other  hand,  if  these  elections  are  inaugurated 
by  the  rich,  why  may  not  the  poor  who  have  superior  numbers 
turn  upon  their  oppressors,  and  bear  down  all  before  them.  In 
such  a  revolution,  leaders  are  always  at  hand.  Wat  Tyler,  Jack 
Cade  and  John  Wilkes  never  die.  The  very  instruments  that 
were  used  to  destroy  the  freedom  of  elections,  will  join  any  other 
counter  revolution  to  destroy  the  destroyer. 

Thousands  of  poor  fellows,  hurried  off  to  the  field  of  slaughter, 
return  to  their  homes  made  desolate  by  the  hands  of  those  that 
cheered  them  on  their  way  from  home  —  out  of  employment,  or 
what  is  worse,  disabled.  During  a  relentless  revolution,  new 
doctrines  have  been  taught  which  may  not  be  lost  upon  them. 
Equality  is  a  term  of  broad  signification  and  may  be  applied  to 
property  as  well  as  suffrage. 


64  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

If  men  may  forcibly  or  fraudulently  vote  in  an  election  to 
destroy  the  wrongs  of  which  they  may  complain,  then  they  may 
declaim  against  the  inequality  of  property  which  is  held  by  the 
few  and  absorbs  their  substance.  They  may  demand  the  equal 
ity  of  ownership  and  enjoyment  of  property. 

The  toiling  millions  who  fight  the  battles,  build  railroads, 
clear  forests,  rear  cities  and  cultivate  the  soil,  are  never  rich;  and 
may  be  known  by  their  coarse  food,  rude  habitations,  plain  dress, 
unlettered  tongue;  but  they  are  still  men  —  the  best,  the  proud 
est  and  purest  of  our  race. 

When  these  men  shiver  in  the  storm  and  pass  by  the  stores 
of  those  that  never  toil,  thousands  of  substantial  garments  yet 
unworn  lying  loosely  on  the  shelves,  the  tatterdemalions  will 
survey  themselves  and  examine  their  wardrobe.  Their  toes  are 
breaking  through  their  boots;  their  elbows  grinning  through 
their  sleeves ;  their  knees  peeping  through  their  pants  ;  the  long 
cold  winter  passing  slowly  with  its  fruitless  labor  and  heavy  de 
mand  upon  the  purse ;  the  leader  will  lift  his  dissatisfied  voice 
to  his  companions,  crying  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  num 
ber.  Here  are  a  hundred  of  us  poor  fellows,  all  covered  with 
rags,  and  your  room  is  lined  with  thousands  of  new  suits.  We 
declare  for  a  general  divide.  The  crowd  responds  and  takes  a 
new  suit  each.  The  crowd  pass  on  to  the  grocery  and  the  orator 
repeats  the  Agrarian  axiom,  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest 
number,  until  the  miller  and  the  butcher  share  the  same  divis 
ion.  Once  emancipated  from  the  exactions  of  law,  like  wild 
beasts,  society  will  slay  and  devour  its  members,  and  they  that 
appeal  to  violence  shall  by  violence  be  destroyed. 

But  to  violence  was  added  perjury,  as  the  instrument  of  suc 
cess  in  these  elections.  And  when  the  people  have  introduced 
these  monstrous  crimes  into  society,  they  must  not  be  surprised 
that  society  is  destroyed  by  its  vices. 

This  may  be  accepted  as  an  unchanging  axiom  that  no  state 
ever  adopted  a  false  system  of  government  which  did  not  work 
out  an  early  ruin  for  herself.  No  church  ever  yielded  to  an  in 
vasion  of  doctrine  which  did  not  ultimately  overthrow  its  eccle 
siastical  system.  Nor  can  we  hope  to  be  an  exception  to  a  rule 
so  general  and  a  law  so  exacting. 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  65 

"No  people  ever  parted  with  their  liberty  without  being  them 
selves  responsible  as  the  agents,  as  well  as  the  victims  of  their 
degradation.  History  amply  vindicates  this  truth. 

Cromwell  trampled  down  the  people  of  Great  Britain  with  a 
meagre,  but  furious  minority. 

Lincoln  at  no  time  had  the  support  of  more  than  one-third  of 
the  electoral  vote  of  the  country. 

But  his  was  the  spirited  and  devilish  third. 

Those  of  the  Church  embraced  in  his  party,  were  the  fanatics 
of  every  faith ;  spiritual  adventurers  who  sow  dissension  among 
their  people,  that  they  may  reap  harvests  of  gain  from  the  ripen 
ed  strife. 

Of  financiers,  he  gathered  around  him  the  stock  gamblers ; 
speculators,  usurers  and  extortioners,  who  inflame  the  money 
market  and  Avin  the  prizes  in  a  general  bankruptcy. 

Of  the  young,  the  violent  attached  themselves  to  his  fortunes. 

Of  the  thinking,  only  the  shallow  and  conceited  were  con 
sulted. 

Of  the  philosophers,  statesmen,  jurists  and  Christians,  there 
were  none  whose  counsels  were  sought  or  whose  opinions  were 
followed. 

This  party,  consisting  of  force  and  vehemence,  lasted  longer 
than  if  it  had  been  directed  by  prudent  men  of  great  knowledge, 
which  would  have  been  fatal  to  success.  The  success  of  such 
revolutions  depends  upon  a  union  of  just  such  forces  who,  well 
knowing  the  weakness  and  stupidity  of  those  remaining,  pre 
sume  their  own  action  upon  the  non-resistance  of  the  oppressed. 

This  was  the  secret  of  the  growing  power  of  Lincoln  and  his 
men  who  overthrew  the  government,  and  perpetuate  the  usurpa 
tion  of  its  powers  through  the  imbecile  cowardice  of  those  they 
have  robbed  of  liberty. 

The  coercion,  corruption  and  control  of  elections  was  necessary 
to  the  usurpation,  and  it  required  but  short  deliberation  to  deter 
mine  upon  these  means  to  accomplish  it.  From  these  elections 
emanated  the  public  debt ;  but  the  elections  were  void. 

I  cite  alone 

THE   MISSOURI   ELECTION. 

The  election  in  the  State  of  Missouri  and  city  of  St.  Louis,  was 
5 


66  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

the  first  fruits  of  a  system  of  chicanery  without  parallel  in  the 
history  of  civilization  in  any  country.  Can  such  elections  bind 
any  one  ?  There  is  not  one  subtle  fraud,  or  lying  subterfuge, 
or  villainous  evasion,  which  has  not  found  its  way  into  the  forms 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  State  of  Missouri  —  to  fasten  in  its 
body  those  enormous  crimes  unknown  to  the  English  language, 
which  would  have  raised  a  rebellion  in  any  country  under 
heaven. 

I.  The  test  oaths  of  the  dark  ages,  which  were  merely  pre 
requisite,  have  been  improved  upon  and  made  retrospective  in 
their  bearing. 

II.  Men  were  forced  to  bear  testimony  against  themselves  in 
violation  of  all  the  well-known  usages  of  the  judiciary  in  every 
country. 

III.  Men  were  disfranchised  and  robbed  of  vested   rights 
without  trial. 

These  are  grounds  of  resistance  held  to  by  people  everywhere. 
To  carry  this  infernal  work  into  complete  operation,  force  and 
fraud  were  necessary,  indeed  indispensable,  and  the  constitution 
was  conformed  exactly  to  it.  The  legislature  of  last  winter 
prepared  the  programme  for  carrying  on  the  elections  by  a  ming 
ling  of  force  and  fraud.  The  vigilance  of  the  President  circum 
vented  the  evil  purposes  of  the  Governor,  which  preserved  us 
from  his  mercenary  militia,  which  threatened  the  polls  in  every 
precinct  in  the  State,  where  it  became  necessary  to  overawe  the 
people  by  threats  of  coercion  to  drive  them  into  submission. 
But  the  removal  of  the  arms  from  the  hands  of  these  vagabonds, 
made  it  a  necessity  that  the  whole  work  should  be  consummated 
by  fraud  alone  —  bald  fraud,  stark  naked — was  employed  to  do 
the  work  alone.  Fraud  was  introduced  as  the  chief  of  ceremo 
nies,  and  commenced  the  superintendence  of  the  whole  service.  It 
was  adjudged  a  crime  sufficient  to  disfranchise  a  man  that  he  had 
fed  the  hungry,  clothed  the  naked,  ministered  to  the  sick,  or  cared 
for  strangers  —  if  any  of  these  persons  had  been  in  any  wise  con 
nected  with  the  late  civil  war,  though  commanded  to  do  these 
things  to  all  men  by  the  law  of  God ;  the  long  infernal  oaths 
then  administered  were  so  blasphemous,  absurd  and  outrageous, 
that  thousands  of  good  men  who  love  their  country  and  its  gov- 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE.  67 

eminent  with  unfaltering  devotion,  shrank  from  the  horrid  dose, 
and  scorned  to  accept  their  vote  upon  such  terms ;  whilst  vaga 
bonds  without  homes,  foreigners  unnaturalized,  convicts  from 
prisons,  octoroons  and  Indians,  were  registered,  the  only  ques 
tions  put,  were  whether  their  votes  might  be  manipulated  by  the 
party  in  power  for  their  own  purposes  of  evil.  But  the  registra 
tion  was  a  failure.  There  was  a  clear  majority  of  the  registered 
voters  of  every  county  in  the  State  who  would  have  voted  the 
conservative  ticket.  In  St.  Louis  county,  the  Radical  voters 
never  amounted  to  more  than  5,500  votes — without  importation 
from  other  places.  The  registration  was  completed  and  an 
nounced  as  26,000  votes  in  round  numbers,  which  would  have 
left  nearly  15,000  majority  for  the  conservatives.  Such  is  the  con 
clusion  of  figures  made  by  the  last  five  years.  On  this  state  of  facts 
the  people  went  to  the  polls.  But  here  they  were  met  by  the  fraud 
in  the  intricate  system  of  districting.  All  the  old  ward  lines  were 
wiped  out,  new  districts  were  formed  by  obscure  streets,  alleys, 
and  unusual  names,  so  as  to  confuse  the  voter,  and  not  one-half 
of  the  voters  of  the  city  knew  where  their  voting  place  could  be 
found.  And  still  others  could  not  find  their  places  of  registra 
tion,  and  when  they  went  to  the  polls,  they  were  required  to 
bring  witnesses  of  their  registration.  Neither  time  nor  space 
will  admit  of  a  detail  of  the  wrongs  and  petty  annoyances  im 
posed  upon  the  people  to  deprive  them  of  voting.  But  to  crown 
the  iniquity,  the  districts  were  so  gerrymandered  as  to  put  a 
number  in  a  polling  district  impossible  to  be  polled  at  one  bal 
lot-box.  Then  hundreds  of  men  were  standing  in  a  solid 
column,  from  the  window  of  the  polls  into  the  streets,  and  no 
one  voting,  the  judge  would  quibble  about  the  registration  for 
half  an  hour,  and  in  the  meantime  the  police  would  hustle  in 
some  Radical,  who  was  known  by  showing  his  ticket,  which  had 
a  device  upon  it,  and  the  police  allowed  him  to  pass,  and  the 
judges  received  his  vote  without  question.  This  was  done,  so 
that  a  dozen  Radicals  would  vote  whilst  one  Democrat  was  in 
waiting  to  deposit  his  vote.  In  the  meantime  the  judges  would 
declare  that  they  could  not  find  the  name  of  the  Democratic 
voter.  In  this  way  at  least  11,000  Democratic  voters  were  dis 
franchised  openly,  shamelessly.  But  this  was  only  a  part  of  the 


68  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAS. 

villainy  resorted  to  by  these  wicked  men.  They  imported  young 
men  from  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Pennsylvania  into  St.  Louis,  hid 
among  the  confusion  of  the  city,  and  secretly  registered,  after  the 
other  registrations  had  ceased,  and  counted  as  voters.  Iowa  con 
tributed  in  the  same  way  to  the  full  extent  of  her  capacity,  until 
the  meagre  number  of  voters  of  the  Eadicals  were  somewhat 
swelled.  The  murderer,  McNeil,  was  elected  in  this  way,  by 
about  one-fifth  of  the  actual  votes  of  St.  Louis  county.  But 
when  every  other  subterfuge  failed  them,  they  played  the  villain 
in  counting.  They  multilated  the  record,  destroyed  the  tickets, 
and  counted  only  to  suit  their  fraudulent  purposes.  This  is  the 
farce  called  an  election  in  the  State  of  Missouri.  The  people  en 
dure  it.  There  are  in  the  county  of  St.  Louis,  fairly  estimated, 
40,000  voters  capable  of  bearing  arms.  Of  these,  7,000  may  be 
radicals,  which  leaves  33,000  conservatives  and  democrats,  who 
will  not  endure  forever  these  infernal  wrongs.  This  leaves  about 
five  to  one.  These  33,000  votes  will  not  endure  disfranchisement. 
It  is  only  a  question  of  time,  and  that  a  very  short  one,  how  long 
this  shall  be  endured  by  a  people  born  free.  It  does  not  help 
the  matter  that  these  7,000  revolutionary  voters  are  adventurers, 
strangers  and  speculators;  that  the  men  they  elect,  are  mere 
hangers-on  upon  society.  There  is  a  lurking  danger  in  these 
wrongs,  that  threatens  revolution.  The  fathers  of  the  govern 
ment  went  to  war  for  far  less  cause,  and  sensible  men  ought  to 
know  that  in  a  great  city  like  St.  Louis,  and  a  great  State  like 
Missouri,  there  can  be  no  security  for  property  where  there  is 
no  guarantee  for  liberty,  and  the  seven  thousand  imported  vaga 
bonds  who  disfranchise  33,000  freemen,  need  not  be  astonished 
at  any  moment  to  hear  of  an  outbreak.  The  polls  have  been 
closed  against  them.  The  courts  have  become  the  pitiful  tools 
of  the  miserable  tyrants. 


CBIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  69 


CHAPTER    VII. 

DISINTEGRATION  OF  CONGRESS.  * 

A  free  people  may  not  be  enslaved  by  a  ruinous  debt  upon 
slight  pretence  or  for  trivial  causes. 

Such  debt  must  be  contracted  in  strict  comformity  with  law. 

1.  THE  CONGRESS  MUST  BE  LEGALLY  CONSTITUTED. 

2.  IT  MUST  BE  LEGALLY  ELECTED. 

3.  The  laws  under  which  a  debt  is  created  must  be  enacted 
in  conformity  with  the  prescribed  forms  of  legislation. 

4.  The  money  must  be  appropriated  by  law. 

5.  The  purposes  for  which  it  is  paid  out  must  be  legitimate. 

THE   LEGAL  CONSTITUTION   OF   CONGRESS. 

1.  "  All  legislative  powers  herein  granted  shall  be  vested  in  a 
Congress  of  the  United  States,  which  shall  consist  of  a  Senate 
and  House  of  Representatives." 

2.  "  The  House  of  Representatives   shall   be   composed   of 
members  chosen  every  second  year  by  the  people  of  the  several 
States,  and  the  electors  in  each  State  shall  have  the  qualifications 
requisite  for  electors  of  the  most  numerous  branch  of  the  State 
Legislature.7'     (Art.  I,  Sec.  2.) 

3.  "  The  Senate  of  the  United  States  shall  be  composed  of 
two  Senators  from  each  State,  chosen  by  the  Legislature  thereof 
for  six  years,  and  each  Senator  shall  have  one  vote."     (Art.  II, 
Sec.  3.) 

4.  "  No  State  shall  be  deprived  of  its  equal  suffrage  in  the 
Senate."     (Art.  V,  near  the  last  clause.) 

These  organic  laws  are  not  only  the  rules  defining  the  powers 
of  Congress,  but  they  are  the  source  from  whence  Congress  de 
rives  its  existence. 

There  can  be  no  Congress  except  as  thus  created. 

Has  there  been  any  such  body  in  the  United  States  within  the 
last  six  years  ? 


70  CHIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR. 

Has  each  State  at  least  one  representative  ?  Has  there  been 
in  session  a  body  composed  of  two  Senators  from  each  State, 
chosen  by  the  Legislature  thereof? 

Any  disfranchisement  of  the  States  in  either  branch  of  Con 
gress  divests  that  body  of  its  power  to  make  laws  of  binding 
force  upon  the  people  of  the  States  not  represented,  according  to 
the  spirit  of  the  last  article  of  the  Constitution  —  if  it  does  not 
divest  it  of  its  entire  law-making  power. 

"  A  minority  of  each  House  may  compel  the  attendance  of 
absent  members,  and  under  such  penalties  as  each  House  may 
provide."  But  it  is  abhorent  to  justice  as  well  as  our  political 
system,  that  a  majority  in  session  should  expel  all  the  absent 
members,  or  a  part  elected  organize  before  the  election  of  the 
others,  expel  them  as  the  elections  occur  and  vote  to  exclude  all 
who  differ  with  them  in  opinion. 

Precisely  this  has  been  done  by  the  representatives  of  a  part 
of  the  States,  who  have  expelled  the  members  of  all  of  the 
Southern  States,  and  such  members  of  the  Northern  States  as 
disagree  with  them  in  opinion. 

Upon  the  same  analogy  of  power  the  next  Congress  may  expel 
New  York,  then  Pennsylvania,  and  successively  combining,  may 
expel  all  of  the  larger  States,  until  there  are  none  left  except 
those  having  sufficient  numerical  strength  to  expel  the  rest. 
Such  a  body  can  have  no  higher  legal  existence  than  seven  mem 
bers  of  a  jury,  who  bar  the  door  against  the  entrance  of  the  other 
five. 

Such  is  the  glaring  usurpation  which  has  created  the  enormous 
debt  now  upon  us  ;  which  maintains  itself  by  quartering  an  army 
upon  one  part  of  the  country,  enslaving  the  people  by  their 
presence,  and  robbing  the  other  part  in  taxation  to  forage  and 
subsist  them.  Expulsion  of  States  is  the  counterpart  of  secession, 
resting  upon  the  same  thesis. 

In  its  organization,  Congress  is  the  creature  of  the  Consti 
tution,  with  no  powers  except  those  derived  from  the  people, 
clearly  set  forth  in  that  instrument.  There  has  then  been  no  law- 
making  power  in  organized  existence  in  the  United  States  for 
some  time.  There  certainly  is  not  such  a  power  now  in  exist 
ence.  Any  organization  pretending  to  such  powers  is  a  usurpa- 


CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR.  71 

tion,  baldly,  nakedly,  clearly,  atrociously  a  usurpation,  without 
an  apology  founded  in  the  Constitution,  whose  authority  can 
command  obedience  by  the  sword  alone,  without  possessing  a 
single  element  of  moral  power  over  the  people.  Congress 
has  been  a  usurpation  in  the  exercise  of  its  legislative  func 
tions.  Its  whole  legislative  career  has  been  marked  by  a 
perpetual  series  of  usurpations  destructive  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  freedom ;  any  one  of  which  would  overthrow  civil 
government,  if  permitted  without  rebuke  and  all  of  which 
combined,  have  changed  the  entire  character  of  our  institutions. 
Instances  might  be  cited,  but  a  conformity  to  the  spirit  of  the 
law  is  that  rare  exception  to  the  whole  wild  and  absurd  career  of 
that  body,  which  can  scarcely  be  noted.  The  divisions  of  States, 
the  abrogation  of  the  States,  the  military  rule  of  States,  the  duress 
of  courts,  the  corruption  of  courts,  the  destruction  of  courts,  the 
imprisonment  of  legislatures,  the  threatening  of  legislatures,  the 
destruction  of  legislatures,  the  duress  of  Congress,  the  corruption, 
the  mutilation  of  Congress,  the  destruction  of  Congress,  are  but 
a  part  of  the  general  usurpation. 


72  CEIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAB. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE  DURESS  OF  CONGRESS. 

CONGRESS  WAS  IN  DUEESS  DURING  THE  PERIOD  OF  THE  CON 
TRACTING  OF  THE  PUBLIC  DEBT. 

No  body,  either  corporate  or  incorporate,  private  or  public,  can 
do  any  legal  act  under  the  restraints  of  duress. 

The  nominal  Congress  was  for  five  years  under  the  most  care 
fully  ordered  duress,  the  most  exacting  espionage,  the  most  com 
plete  terror  ever  exercised  over  any  deliberative  body  invested 
with  law-making  powers. 

From  the  opening  of  the  war  until  the  conclusion  of  peace, 
Congress  was  surrounded  with  soldiers  —  menaced  by  an  army, 
whose  bristling  bayonets  gleaming  in  the  sunlight,  flashed  upon 
the  windows  of  the  Capitol,  and  fell  upon  the  eyes  of  this  terri 
fied  body.  The  legislation  was  dictated  by  the  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  army,  who  acted  in  advance  of  all  legislation. 

The  bold  men  of  the  opposition  were  in  perpetual  danger  of 
assassination  or  death  by  the  slow  torture  of  the  prison.  Mobs 
were  organized  in  every  part  of  the  country,  and  members  of 
Congress  were  in  danger  for  every  word  spoken  in  conflict  with 
the  policy  of  the  President,  and  were  imprisoned  at  his  will. 

Mr.  Vallandigham  was  arrested,  imprisoned  and  banished  by 
a  mob  of  military  idiots  under  the  usurpation  of  a  military  com 
mission.  This  was  inflicted  as  a  punishment  for  his  bold,  active, 
defence  of  the  people  whilst  in  Congress  :  as  well  as  to  intimi 
date  others  by  the  example  of  his  punishment. 

Mr.  Wall,  of  New  Jersey,  was  imprisoned  and  brutally  treat 
ed  because  he  was  a  prominent  candidate  for  United  States 
Senator,  a  gentleman  of  great  independence  and  eminent  ability. 

Henry  May,  of  Maryland,  a  member  of  Congress,  was  im 
prisoned  whilst  attending  the  funeral  of  an  illustrious  brother, 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  73 

who  had  died  of  disease  contracted  in  the  Mexican  war,  because 
he  was  the  luminous  mind  of  the  Maryland  College  in  Con 
gress,  and  the  leading  spirit  of  her  freemen  who  stood  with  un- 
deviating  devotion  to  the  government. 

Willis  J.  Allen,  a  Congressman  of  Illinois,  was  kept  in  prison 
with  felons,  under  no  charge  whatever,  which  an  iniquitous  Con 
gress  could  make  a  pretext  for  his  expulsion  from  that  body,  be 
cause  an  example  was  required  to  trample  down  the  people  of 
Southern  Illinois,  and  force  their  acquiescence  in  the  general 
usurpation. 

In  its  legislation,  the  President  neither  consulted  or  awaited 
the  action  of  Congress,  but  anticipated  it ;  and  accepted  the  rati 
fication  of  their  own  debasement  with  avidity. 

In  all  of  this  imbecile,  terrified  body,  there  was  no  man  who 
dared  prefer  articles  of  impeachment  against  the  President  for 
his  crimes,  or  call  in  question  his  actions. 

The  mover  of  impeachment  would  have  been  imprisoned  and 
destroyed. 

Such  men  as  Voorhees,  Pendleton,  Ben.  Wood  and  Long,  pro 
perly  chose,  quietly  to  assist  to  preserve  the  remnants  of  liberty 
lingering  among  the  people,  and  expose  the  outrages  daily  per 
petrated  upon  their  representatives. 

The  press  of  Benjamin  Wood  had  been  suppressed  by  military 
interference. 

Such  was  the  terror  over  the  Congress,  that  its  members  acted 
as  though  their  powers  were  derived  from  the  President,  and 
with  disgraceful  servility,  these  miserable  slaves  and  tools  of  ty 
rants  for  five  years,  day  after  day,  recorded  the  edicts  of  the 
army. 

This  Congress  represented  nobody,  was  phrenzied  by  the 
scent  of  blood  like  a  herd  of  wild  buffaloes  stamping  the  ground 
and  rending  the  air  with  their  hideous  lowing.  Having  lost 
their  reason,  these  Congressmen  gave  vent  to  the  most  loathe- 
some  forms  of  passion  to  hide  the  shame  of  their  degradation. 

A  body  of  men  dazzled  by  the  gleaming  sabre,  ready  to  be 
turned  at  any  moment  upon  them,  looking  at  the  vacant  seats  of 
members  of  their  i)ody,  imprisoned  for  the  legitimate  exercise  of 
their  Constitutional  rights,  were  under  such  duress  as  utterly  in 
capacitated  them  for  independent  legislation. 


74  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

Their  attempt  at  law-making  was  a  broad  farce,  exciting  ridi 
cule  and  disgust,  rather  than  merriment. 

No  act  of  such  a  body  of  legislators  can  bind  the  conscience  of 
the  people ;  any  more  than  a  deed  of  trust  made  under  duress,  can 
bind  the  forced  grantors,  though  the  body  of  the  deed  should 
declare  that  it  was  their  voluntary  act  and  deed. 

In  this  terrible  reign  of  crime  and  usurpation,  there  were 
brave  men  who  defied  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  Adminis 
tration. 

Among  the  great  men  who  stood  unterrified  by  threats,  un- 
tempted  by  bribes,  and  unmoved  by  persuasion,  was  Hon.  Ben. 
G.  Harris,  of  Maryland,  who  stood  solitary  and  alone  in  his 
vote  against  the  subjugation  of  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States ;  was  at  last  arrested  for  feeding  two  hungry  strangers 
who  were  sent  to  him  for  the  purpose.  This  occurred  after  the 
war  was  over,  when  to  do  such  a  charity  was  a  Christian  virtue, 
to  be  coveted  by  the  purest  saint. 

For  giving  a  dollar  to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  hunger  of  these 
two  poor  fellows  who  were  on  their  way  to  their  desolate  homes, 
after  having  laid  down  their  arms,  after  Lee  and  Johnston  had 
surrendered ;  this  able  statesman,  Benjamin  G.  Harris,  was  ar 
rested,  confined  and  dragged  before  a  committee  of  military  vag 
abonds,  declared  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  three  years7  imprison 
ment  in  the  penitentiary.  Like  a  true  Eoman,  he  scorned  to 
ask  for  pardon,  and  through  very  shame  the  President  remitted 
the  sentence.  But  they  could  neither  break  the  spirit  nor  sub 
due  the  soul  of  this  upright  honest  man. 

Others  there  were  who  quietly  yielded  their  assent  to  crimes 
which  they  abhorred. 


CBIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  75 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  CHARACTER  OF  CONGRESS  THAT  ROBS  Us  OF  LIBERTY. 

THE  fathers  were  honest  men  who  sacrificed  themselves  for  the 
public  good. 

In  the  earlier  history  of  the  country  our  statesmen  lived  and 
died  poor,  and  only  those  of  large  estates  and  liberal  patrimonies 
when  they  entered  public  life,  retired  with  a  competency ;  and  a 
large  number  died  insolvent. 

Thomas  Jefferson  spent  much  of  his  life  in  public  business ; 
investing  so  much  money  in  such  historical  and  political  works 
as  would  contribute  to  the  more  perfect  understanding  of  our 
new  institution,  he  died  poor,  and  had  to  be  relieved  from 
want  in  old  age  by  special  legislation ;  although  he  had  added 
the  Louisiana  territory  to  the  Union. 

James  Monroe  was  utterly  destitute  in  old  age  and  indebted 
to  the  charity  of  friends  for  a  decent  burial,  although  he  had 
fought  through  the  Revolutionary  War  and  added  Florida  to 
the  Union. 

Robert  Morris,  the  great  American  financier,  spent  his  latter 
years  in  prison  for  debt,  though  he  had  bestowed  a  fortune  in 
the  service  of  his  country,  only  less  valuable  than  that  of 
"Washington. 

George  Washington  scorned  to  grow  rich  from  the  public 
treasury.  He  freely  gave  his  time  to  the  country,  accepting  only 
payment  for  his  actual  outlays ;  although  he  had  added  a  new 
power  to  the  Governments  of  the  world.  Such  was  the  proud, 
self-sacrificing  spirit  of  the  great  Republicans  who  maintained 
the  high  character  of  the  Government. 

Benton,  Clay,  Jackson,  Webster,  Harrison,  Scott,  Prentiss, 
the  statesmen,  heroes,  authors  and  early  public  men  of  America, 
wrere  all  poor  men,  who  had  not  large  patrimonies.  Such  were 
the  examplars  of  our  liberty. 


76  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

The  Congressmen  we  elect  leave  us  poor,  sell  their  votes  to 
Eastern  capitalist,  come  home  rich,  prepared  to  buy  up  our  lands 
when  they  are  sold  for  taxes.  They  would  gladly  keep  the 
people  cutting  each  others'  throats — quarreling  about  other  men's 
business  ;  whilst  they  sell  our  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage. 
In  all  of  the  history  of  deliberative  bodies,  no  more  sorrowful 
exhibition  of  manhood  has  ever  been  made  than  the  composition 
of  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress.  Schuyler  Colfax  says,  "  it  was 
the  ablest  body  of  men  that  ever  sat  in  Congress."  I  may  be 
mistaken,  but  think  not,  when  I  declare  it  the  most  imbecile, 
corrupt  and  wicked  deliberative  body  of  men  that  ever  spoke 
the  English  language.  The  very  evidence  which  so  conclusively 
demonstrates  the  strength  of  this  body  to  Mr.  Colfax,  is  that 
which  so  conclusively  establishes  its  weakness  with  everybody 
else  —  that  he  was  elected  its  Speaker.  What  a  beautiful  specta 
cle  that  would  have  been  to  see  Henry  Clay,  or  John  Bell,  or 
Andrew  Stevenson,  traversing  the  country,  whilst  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  delivering  a  catch-penny  lecture  in  the 
showman's  style,  at  fifty  cents  a  sight !  Mr.  Colfax  is  not  a 
lawyer  that  any  one  ever  heard  of.  He  was  once  a  minister,  but  of 
such  insignificance  as  to  be  entirely  unknown.  He  was  an  editor 
of  a  very  obscure  paper,  which  has  nob  been  extended  in  circu 
lation  by  the  weight  of  his  office,  ponderous  as  he  conceives  it. 
In  that  whole  assembly  of  the  Republican  party,  there  was  not 
one  eminent  lawyer,  though  it  had  many  lawyers.  The  first 
Congressional  District  of  Iowa  furnishes  the  Chairman  of  the 
Judiciary,  James  F.  Wilson,  yet  at  every  bar  in  the  District 
there  are  much  abler  lawyers  than  Mr.  Wilson.  Mr.  Wilson 
had  never  been  engaged  in  a  first-class  civil  case,  nor  a  capital 
case ;  and  could  not  at  his  peril  carry  a  first-class  case  through 
all  the  courts  successfully.  In  Ohio  he  was  a  very  respectable 
saddler ;  in  Iowa,  a  county  court  lawyer  and  political  trickster. 
The  analysis  might  be  extended,  but  we  confine  it  to  representa 
tive  men.  The  Republican  party,  who  were  very  fully  repre 
sented  by  preachers,  had  not  among  their  ministers  one  eminent 
pulpit  orator,  able  theological  controversalist,  author,  scholar  or 
divine  whose  threadbare  harangues  would  not  have  worn  out  the 
patience  of  the  most  meek  and  submissive  audience.  Perhaps 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  77 

the  rakish  and  shallow  Grinnell  was  the  ablest  of  their  divines. 
But  Grinnell  could  not  entertain  an  intelligent  audience  for  an 
hour  upon  any  topic;  and  with  all  of  his  shameless  impudence, 
would  scarcely  venture  a  religious  diatribe  among  the  people  of 
his  own  State,  and  surely  could  not  sustain  a  congregation. 
About  government  he  knows  less  than  nothing;  was  flogged  for 
his  bad  manners  and  deserted  by  his  friends.  The  Republicans 
had  generals  and  military  officers  in  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress, 
but  among  their  military  officials  there  was  not  one  distinguished 
character.  Schenck  was  the  recognized  leader  of  this  class,  but 
Schenck  was  the  very  weakest  and  most  unfortunate  of  all  the  mili 
tary  men,  where  military  men  were  chosen  for  their  known  inca 
pacity  in  military  affairs.  For  his  butchery  at  Vienna,  in  a  well- 
regulated  army,  he  would  have  been  cashiered  for  his  imbecility, 
or  shot  for  his  crime.  His  rule  in  Baltimore  was  the  opprobrium 
of  the  war,  which  gave  comparative  respectability  to  Butler. 
There  were  among  the  remainder  neither  historians,  poets,  nor 
philosophers ;  and  the  only  way  in  which  they  were  estimated, 
was  by  the  amount  of  money  which  it  was  supposed  necessary  to 
buy  their  votes.  They  were  the  offals  of  every  profession. 
Among  the  lawyers,  there  was  none  such  as  Judge  Black,  Attor 
ney-General  Gushing,  Charles  O'Connor  or  Mr.  Browning. 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  who  was  a  successful  advocate  and  rabble- 
rouser  in  early  life,  never  pretended  to,  nor  did  his  friends  claim 
for  him,  the  rank  of  the  first  lawyers  of  the  State ;  as  was  award 
ed  to  Buchanan,  Ross,  Sharswood,  Forward,  Woodward  or  Reed. 
Among  the  divines  in  this  Congress,  there  were  none  such  as 
Bishop  Soule,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church ;  Meade,  of 
the  Episcopal ;  Fuller,  of  the  Baptist;  or  the  abler  Presbyterians 
of  former  times.  Among  the  generals,  there  was  none  such  as 
Scott,  Jackson,  Lee  or  Johnston.  Never  did  a  more  wretched 
constituency  of  fanatics  elect  a  representation  of  more  arrant 
knaves  and  impracticable  fools ;  never  was  there  such  a  hybrid 
cross  between  villainy  and  stupidity.  They  went  to  Congress 
poor ;  came  back  rich.  They  were  cunning  villains,  who,  if  ac 
cepting  bribes,  knew  how  to  cover  up  every  trace  of  their  wick 
edness  and  corruption  ;  defy  investigations,  investigate  their  own 
rascality,  and  declare  themselves  acquitted.  Stevens;  the  ablest, 


78  CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

worst  and  wickedest  of  all,  yet  eschewing  open  bribes,  "hesitates 
not  to  tell  his  own  constituency  of  the  bribery  in  elections  of 
both  Representatives  and  Senators,  of  bribery,  duplicity  and  cor 
ruption  in  the  votes  which  elected  his  colleague  (Cameron),  to 
the  Senate.  Our  Congressmen  grew  prematurely  rich.  One 
only  yesterday  was  a  poor  man,  a  schoolmaster  and  Methodist 
preacher.  He  now  lives  in  a  palatial  mansion  in  "Washington 
city,  and  condescends  to  visit  his  home  occasionally,  to  spend  a 
few  days  in  another  magnificent  baronage.  Another  was  poor, 
never  had  heavy  cases  or  large  fees ;  he  is  now  President  of  a 
bank,  and  very  wealthy.  Both  of  these  gentlemen  were  losing 
money  on  their  salaries,  and  therefore  excused  themselves  for 
adding  two  thousand  dollars  per  annum  to  their  former  salaries. 
This  is  the  history  of  the  whole  Congress.  How  did  they  make 
their  money  ?  Where  did  they  get  their  bank  stock  ?  How  did 
they  get  it  ?  You  must  ask  manufacturers  how  they  got  their 
tariffs ;  you  must  ask  railroads  how  they  got  their  lands ;  that 
may  give  you  light.  Did  these  gentlemen  take  open  bribes? 
Certainly  not ;  they  are  entirely  too  shrewd  for  all  that.  They 
saw  other  gentlemen  in  Congress  get  expelled  for  that  folly.  But 
liberal  gentlemen  always  make  presents  to  their  friends.  It  is 
enough  to  know  that  your  Congressmen  are  rich,  and  you  are 
poor.  Before  they  went  to  Congress,  you  were  rich  and  they 
were  poor.  Something  wrought  the  change.  But  they  did  not 
get  enough  to  pay  their  expenses — were  actually  losing  money  — 
and  voted  themselves  four  thousand  dollars  each,  for  past  servi 
ces,  to  pay  expenses.  But  where  did  they  get  the  money  ?  I 
leave  this  for  you  to  answer.  One-half  you  make  has  been  given 
to  the  manufacturer  to  pay  tariffs.  Could  not  the  manufacturers 
afford  to  make  presents  to  the  men  who  presented  them  with  at 
least  half  of  all  your  earnings  ?  The  bondholder  gets  a  heavy 
allowance.  Could  he  not  afford  to  make  these  gentlemen  a  present  ? 
The  railroad  companies  get  manors  and  millions  of  acres  and  bonds, 
through  their  votes.  Could  not  they  afford  to  divide  out  liber 
ally  with  the  voter  ?  Steamships  get  contracts  of  immense  pro 
fit.  Won't  they  contribute  somewhat?  Telegraph  companies 
make  fortunes.  Won't  they  contribute  to  save  a  poor  Congress 
man  from  penury  and  want  ?  This  much,  however,  you  know, 


CEIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAK.  79 

that  you  pay  taxes  and  are  poor,  and  they  receive  salaries,  paid 
with  your  taxes,  and  are  rich,  and  make  bankers  and  manufac 
turers  rich  by  their  votes.  These  men,  whose  sworn  duty  is  to 
maintain  the  public  peace,  after  having  sold  their  votes  for  gain, 
fear  the  inquiry  and  investigation  of  the  people,  and  cry  offensive 
names  of  "  copperhead, "  "  secesh, "  "  rebel, "  &c.,  to  avert  the 
curses  of  the  people  from  their  own  to  the  heads  of  others.  So  long 
as  they  could  keep  the  country  engaged  in  actual  warfare,  they  had 
the  most  perfect  immunity  of  murder,  arson  and  robbery.  Peace 
would  promptly  arrest  their  crime  and  their  profit  together. 
But  unlike  high-minded  highwaymen,  who  rob  only  their  ene-^ 
mies,  these  Congressmen  rob  their  friends  whilst  they  butcher 
their  enemies,  and  leave  devastation  in  their  pathway,  to  attest 
their  success  in  the  prosecution  of  the  purposes  of  their  ambition. 
In  the  present  Congress  you  have  no  hope.  The  men  who  com 
pose  it  have  your  ruin  deliberated.  They  have  sought  the  pub 
lic  treasury  as  a  means  of  enriching  their  private  purse.  They 
have  used  the  public  sword  to  gratify  their  private  personal  mal 
ice.  They  have  employed  the  halls  of  Congress  to  defame  the 
American  people,  and  have  covertly  prostituted  every  sacred 
principle  of  law  and  liberty,  to  elevate  themselves  upon  a  pedes 
tal  imbedded  in  the  ashes  of  the  Constitution,  sprinkled  with 
the  blood  of  the  people.  Your  only  hope  is  in  yourselves  — 
your  thorough,  and  complete,  and  compact  organization ;  in  send 
ing  to  represent  you  men  of  ability  and  integrity,  who  love  lib 
erty  and  fear  God. 


80  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  CORRUPTION  OF  CONGRESS  IN  CREATING  THE  DEBT. 

THE  corruptions  of  Congress  are  alarming.  The  black  mail, 
levied  by  political  combination,  to  secure  offices  in  the  larger 
cities,  threatens  the  entire  overthrow  of  our  political  system. 

It  is  quite  as  notorious  as  infamous,  that  party  nominations, 
equivalent  to  elections  in  the  larger  cities,  cost  immense  sums  of 
money ;  sometimes  the  mayoralty  of  a  city  costs  the  candidates 
twenty  to  forty  thousand  dollars  as  a  condition  of  nomination. 

And  nearly  every  officer  pays  a  tribute  of  his  salary,  and  fees 
to  the  combinations  from  whom  he  secures  his  office. 

Twenty  to  fifty  thousand  dollars  is  regarded  a  necessity  to  the 
candidacy  to  Congress,  and  candidates  secure  it  in  the  same  way ; 
but  not  by  the  same  honourable  means  that  Englishmen  secure 
positions  in  the  army. 

Secretaries  of  the  Executive  Departments  have  been  engaged 
in  speculations  that  have  secured  them  immense  fortunes  sudden 
ly,  and  have  scarcely  concealed  the  evidence  of  their  crime. 

The  history  of  modern  legislation  is  simply  the  details  of  cor 
ruption,  peculation,  bribery  and  black  mail,  by  which  constit 
uencies  are  divested  of  every  guaranty  of  good  government. 

These  gentlemen  indemnify  themselves  for  outlays  in  voting 
millions,  in  exorbitant  tariffs,  in  voting  millions  of  acres  in  land 
grants  to  corporations,  in  voting  contractors'  claims,  hurried  like 
lightning  through  committees,  and  passed  without  examination 
in  the  last  hours  through  the  House,  when  the  President  has 
scarcely  time  to  read  them. 

The  manufacturers  can  well  aiford  to  pay  millions  to  compen 
sate  for  tens  of  millions  dollars  voted  into  their  pockets ;  nor 
would  the  corporations  hesitate  to  hand  over  thousands  of  acres 
of  the  millions  placed  in  their  hands,  and  contractors  willingly 
divided  their  spoils  with  their  benefactors. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  81 

From  the  most  pinching  want  and  obscure  position,  these 
gentlemen  emerge  into  bank  presidents,  live  in  splendid  houses, 
drive  magnificent  turnouts.  Their  families,  covered  with  silks 
and  jewelry,  and  living  in  oriental  style,  assume  aristocratic 
airs. 

The  Congressmen,  not  the  people,  premeditatedly  provoked, 
perpetuated  and  would  yet  continue  civil  war,  as  a  source  of 
profit,  power  and  position. 

This  could  only  be  done  by  the  perpetration  of  frauds. 

The  Congress  still  demand  armies  to  overawe  the  people,  and 
pretend  that  war  exists,  and  demands  armies  that  frauds  be  not 
discovered ;  and  if  discovered,  be  not  exposed ;  and  if  any  one 
dare  expose  them,  that  martial  law  be  declared ;  and  any  person 
testifying  against  them,  may  be  arrested  under  any  pretence 
whatever,  tried  by  court  martial,  convicted  without  defence,  and 
executed  without  the  privilege  of  leaving  their  denial  as  a  legacy 
to  their  families  and  to  justice;  at  every  stage  of  the  proceedings 
deprived  of  the  unquestionable  rights  of  self-defence. 

For  five  years  these  flagrant  murders  and  robberies  have  been 
carried  to  a  startling  extent,  to  rid  guilty  parties  of  the  odium 
and  punishment  due  to  crime,  in  which  members  of  Congress 
were  partners  with  sutlers  and  commissioners  of  subsistence, 
holding  a  percentage  in  the  profits  of  the  business. 

Every  encampment  and  army  store-house  burned,  as  carefully 
burned  all  books  and  accounts  in  a  common  ash  heap. 

In  this  destruction  of  papers,  the  confusion  of  martial  law, 
the  corruptions  of  office  and  peculation,  were  kept  from  the  pub 
lic  view. 

The  votes  of  Congressmen  were  bought  and  sold  in  the  mar 
ket,  as  the  service  of  cyprians.  The  price  was  regulated  by 
the  influence  of  the  member  and  magnitude  of  the  interest,  or 
the  pressing  necessity  of  his  vote. 

So  well  is  the  process  of  corruption  understood,  that  each  new 
member,  is  beset,  by  all  the  blandishments  of  power,  assailing  all 
the  weaknesses  of  human  nature. 

By  money  and  other  less  reputable  means,  members  of  Con 
gress  were  bribed  to  vote  for  the  late  Constitutional  amendment, 
or  absent  themselves  from  their  seats. 
6 


82  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Nearly  every  legislative  outrage  and  usurpation  is  accomplished 
in  the  same  way,  where  money  fails.  Social  and  political  posi 
tions,  is  used  as  a  part  of  the  standard  currency  of  corruption. 
Sometimes  a  great  measure,  that  tenderly  touches  the  destiny  of 
the  country,  turns  upon  the  secret  embraces  of  an  artful  courte 
zan,  who  holds  at  her  will  the  character  and  social  peace  of  some 
feeble  member  of  Congress.  At  other  times,  a  corrupted  Con 
gressman,  with  the  wages  of  his  iniquity  in  his  pocket,  will  bo 
seen  stepping  from  the  representative  seat  of  a  betrayed  constit 
uency,  into  the  voluptuous  court  of  a  foreign  despot,  to  revel  in  the 
price  of  his  honor,  and  hide  his  shame  in  foreign  lands. 

This  Congressional  corruption  extended  to  the  army,  where  it 
found  new  and  richer  fields  of  plunder.  Army  officers,  without 
capacity,  were  appointed  and  promoted  by  contract.  Superior 
officers  sold  their  influence,  to  secure  appointments  and  promo 
tions  of  inferior  officers.  Heads  of  Departments  of  the  general 
government  levied  black  mail  of  their  inferiors,  to  keep  up  style 
and  promote  the  success  of  elections,  until  public  offices  have 
become  matters  of  mercenary  speculations,  like  bank,  railroad, 
and  other  stock. 

The  style  in  the  invaded  States  is  well  explained  in  the  follow 
ing  letter: 

A  SOUVENIR  OF  SHERMAN'S  BUMMERS. 

The  following  letter,  says  the  Columbus  (Ga.)  Sun  and  Times, 
was  found  in  the  streets  of  Columbia,  immediately  after  the  army 
of  General  Sherman  had  left.  The  original  is  preserved,  and 
can  be  shown  and  substantiated,  if  anybody  desires : 

CAMP  NEAR  CAMDEN,  S.  C.,  Feb.  26,  1865. 

MY  DEAR  WIFE — I  have  no  time  for  particulars.  We  have 
had  a  glorious  time  in  this  State.  Unrestricted  license  to  burn 
and  plunder  was  the  order  of  the  day.  The  chivalry  have  been 
stripped  of  most  of  their  valuables.  Gold  watches,  silver  pitch 
ers,  cups,  spoons,  forks,  &c.,  are  as  common  in  camp  as  blackber 
ries.  The  terms  of  plunder  are  as  follows :  Each  company  is 
required  to  exhibit  the  results  of  its  operations  at  any  given 
place  —  one-fifth  and  first  choice  falls  to  the  share  of  the  com- 
mander-in-chief  and  staff;  one-fifth  to  the  corps  commanders  and 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  83 

staff;  one-fifth  to  field  officers  of  regiments,  and  two-fifths  to  the 
company. 

Officers  are  not  allowed  to  join  these  expeditions  without  dis 
guising  themselves  as  privates.  One  of  our  corps  commanders 
borrowed  a  suit  of  rough  clothes  from  one  of  my  men,  and  was 
successful  in  this  place.  He  got  a  large  quantity  of  silver 
(among  other  things  an  old-time  milk  pitcher)  and  a  very  fine 
gold  watch  from  a  Mrs.  DeSaussure,  at  this  place.  DeSaussure 
was  one  of  the  F.  F.  V.'s  of  South  Carolina,  and  was  made  to 
fork  over  liberally.  Officers  over  the  rank  of  captain  are  not 
made  to  put  their  plunder  in  the  estimate  for  general  distribu 
tion.  This  is  very  unfair,  and  for  that  reason,  in  order  to  pro 
tect  themselves,  subordinate  officers  and  privates  keep  back  every 
thing  that  they  can  carry  about  their  persons,  such  as  rings,  ear 
rings,  breast  pins,  &c.,  of  which,  if  I  ever  get  home,  I  have 
about  a  quart.  T  am  not  joking  —  I  have  at  least  a  quart  of 
jewelry  for  you  and  all  the  girls,  and  some  No.  1  diamond  rings 
and  pins  among  them.  General  Sherman  has  silver  and  gold 
enough  to  start  a  bank.  His  share  in  gold  watches  alone  at  Co 
lumbia  was  two  hundred  and  seventy-five.  But  I  said  I  could 
not  go  into  particulars.  All  the  general  officers  and  many  be 
sides  had  valuables  of  every  description,  down  to  the  embroid 
ered  ladies'  pocket  handkerchiefs.  I  have  my  share  of  them, 

too.     We  took  gold  and  silver  enough  from  the  cl d  rebels  to 

have  redeemed  their  infernal  currency  twice  over.  This,  (the 
currency,)  whenever  we  came  across  it,  we  burned,  as  we  con 
sidered  it  utterly  worthless. 

I  wish  all  the  jewelry  this  army  has  could  be  carried  to  the 
"  Old  Bay  State."  It  would  deck  her  out  in  glorious  style ; 
but,  alas!  it  will  be  scattered  all  over  the  North  and  Middle 

States.     The  d d  niggers,  as  a  general  rule,  prefer  to  stay  at 

home,  particularly  after  they  found  out  that  we  only  wanted  the 
able-bodied  men,  (and,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  the  youngest  and 
best-looking  women.)  Sometimes  we  took  off  whole  families 
and  plantations  of  niggers,  by  way  of  repaying  secessionists. 
But  the  useless  part  of  them  we  soon  manage  to  lose ;  sometimes 
in  crossing  rivers,  sometimes  in  other  ways. 

I  shall  write  to  you  again  from  Wilmington,  Goldsboro',  or 
some  other  place  in  North  Carolina.  The  order  to  march  has 
arrived,  and  I  must  close  hurriedly.  Love  to  grandmother  and 
aunt  Charlotte.  Take  care  of  yourself  and  children.  Don't 
show  this  letter  out  of  the  family. 
Your  affectionate  husband, 

THOMAS  J.  MYERS,  Lieut.,  &c. 


84  CRIMES    OF   THE    CIVIL    WAR. 

P.  S.  I  will  send  this  by  the  first  flag  of  truce  to  be  mailed, 
unless  I  have  an  opportunity  of  sending  it  to  Hilton  Head. 
Tell  Sallie  I  am  saving  a  pearl  bracelet  and  ear-rings  for  her; 
but  Lambert  got  the  necklace  and  breast-pin  of  the  same  set. 
I  am  trying  to  trade  him  out  of  them.  These  were  taken  from 
the  Misses  Jamison,  daughters  of  the  President  of  the  South 
Carolina  Secession  Convention.  We  found  these  on  our  trip 
through  Georgia. 

This  letter  was  addressed  to  Mrs.  Thomas  J.  Myers,  Boston, 
Massachusetts. 

It  need  not  be  a  matter  of  wonder  how  members  buy  their 
election  to  Congress,  buy  their  nomination,  live  in  grandeur,  be 
stow  with  munificence,  defy  the  simplest  laws  of  justice,  and  still 
return  to  the  legislature  halls  to  repeat  their  crimes. 

The  government  was  robbed  to  fill  the  pockets  of  contractors, 
to  furnish  places  to  ambitious  men ;  to  insult,  punish,  and  de 
grade  those  who  exposed  those  crimes. 

The  amount  of  public  money  squandered  is  incalculable. 

The  history  of  wars  is  the  biography  of  thieves,  robbers  and 
sharpers  upon  the  one  hand ;  and  of  bankrupt,  ruined,  honest 
and  silly  men  who  were  unfortunate  enough  to  come  in  contact 
with  them,  upon  the  other  hand. 

With  Bonaparte  and  Alexander,  Cyrus  and  Caesar,  Charles 
XII  and  Peter  the  Great,  Wellington  and  Washington,  contract 
ors  and  sutlers  were  accounted  the  value  of  armies.  But  in  the 
late  war  these  cormorants  were  the  living  substance  and  most 
prominent  elements  of  its  existence. 

1.  Contractors  sold  out  their  wares  at  enormous  prices,  and  col 
luded  with  officers,  defrauded  the  government,  by  selling  to  the 
army  damaged  goods,  dealing  out  rations  with  false  weights  and 
measures,  selling  broken  wagons,  crippled  horses  and  mules,  or  col 
luding  with  the  public  enemy  to  make  sale  of  the  same  article 
many  ti  mcs.  These  vampires,  who  were  generally  partners  of  mem 
bers  of  Congress,  made  princely  fortunes,  and  are  now  spending 
their  money  in  riotous  living,  revelling  among  harlots,  dwell 
ing  in  palaces  gorged  with  viands,  drunken  with  blood,  reeking 
with  corruption,  and  swaggering  with  self-importance. 

It  required  the  open  mouth  of  every  drowning  monster,  the 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  85 

extravagance  of  every  profligate  public  officer;  the  destroying 
torch  of  every  incendiary,  and  the  lavishment  of  government 
hirelings  upon  every  vice,  to  sink  this  country  into  its  present 
vortex  of  crime  and  debt. 

The  details  of  this  extravagance  would  fill  libraries  and  fright 
en  the  reader. 

The  character  of  the  crimes  forbade  their  publication  in  the 
public  journals  under  penalties  visited  upon  obscene  publications. 
The  frauds,  negligence,  crimes  and  usurpations,  embody  a  com 
plete  system  reduced  to  a  science,  by  collecting  all  of  the  tricks 
of  trade,  the  pilferings  of  the  camp,  the  horrors  of  the  battle 
field,  the  corruptions  of  government  and  the  usurpations  of  power 
into  one  thoughtfully  revised  and  thoroughly  digested  code  of 
crime,  directed  against  the  people  under  the  supervision  of  the 
government. 

I  cite  the  example  of  that  prodigy  of  imbecility,  pretension 
and  failure,  Maj.  Gen.  John  Charles  Fremont,  and  take  but  a 
few  random  passages  from  thousands  of  pages  of  the  most  trans 
parent  corruption. 

The  bribes  exacted  of  contractors  were  private,  shameful,  and 
extravagant. 

The  frauds  on  the  Quartermaster's  Department  were  numer 
ous,  and  extended  through  all  branches  under  his  control  and 
supervision. 

In  the  purchase  of  horses,  the  government  paid  §119.50  per 
head  for  1000.  The  contractor's  agent,  who  is  approved  by  the 
quartermaster,  had  charge  of  the  field  where  the  horses  were 
to  pass  examination. 

The  farmer  who  sold  horses  to  the  government,  paid  ten  dollars 
entrance  fee  to  the  agent ;  he  then  paid  another  ten  dollars  fee  to 
their  agent  for  their  recommendation  to  the  contractor,  who  intimi 
dates  the  purchaser  and  buys  them  at  the  very  lowest  figure  of  $85 
to  $90,  when  horses  outside  were  selling  at  much  higher  fig 
ures.  In  this  way  these  contractors,  dividing  the  plunder  with 
the  quartermasters,  made  independent  fortunes. 

One  of  the  government  inspectors  was  a  discharged  convict  of 
the  Kentucky  penitentiary. 

With  such  arrangements,  with  a  few  good  horses,  they  filled 


88  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

the  remainder  of  the  contracts  with  broken  down  stage,  street, 
car  and  omnibus  horses,  which  fell  dead  on  the  road.  Dead 
horses  were  lying  around  the  depot  where  they  had  been  kept. 
The  contractor  would  buy  up  these  broken-down  nags,  trot  them 
out  full  of  bran,  and  peppered,  and  sold  with  an  understanding, 
at  §115  to  $130.  First-class  horses  were  at  the  same  time  reject 
ed  and  denounced,  to  prevent  them  from  being  branded.  Ignor 
ant  countrymen  would  sell  the  rejected  horses  at  low  prices;  and 
the  same  agent  who  had  rejected  them,  would  afterwards  accept 
them,  and  the  contractor  would  place  them  in  his  complement  to 
give  character  to  the  remainder  of  his  damaged  stock. 

In  wragons  the  frauds  was  adroitly  managed  between  the  con 
tractor  and  the  government  agent. 

The  army  would  press  the  wagons  into  the  service,  and  the 
contractor  present  his  claim,  which  was  promptly  paid,  and  the 
profits  shared  between  them. 

Most  of  these  wagons  were  unfit  for  service ;  the  axles,  reach, 
bolsters,  spokes,  hubs,  &c.,  were  cracked,  and  the  cracks  filled 
with  leather  and  putty,  and  painted  over  where  the  fraud  was 
apparent :  these  wagons  soon  broke  down  and  all  were  worth 
less. 

Eleven  fortifications  were  built,  when  the  actual  cost  was  not 
more  than  $1 0,000;  the  amount  claimed  by  contractors  was 
$300,000.  Out  of  the  enormous  fraud  the  laborers  did  not  re 
ceive  their  wages,  for  which  they  clamored  at  the  government 
office. 

Fremont  rented  the  magnificent  mansion  of  Mrs.  Col.  Brant, 
the  cousin  of  his  wife,  at  $6,000  per  annum.  His  staff  lived  in 
a  style  of  like  magnificence,  in  the  finest  mansions  in  the  neigh 
borhood. 

Spacious  and  extravagant  barracks,  sufficient  for  the  accom 
modation  of  2,500  men,  were  erected  for  Fremont's  body-guard 
of  600  men. 

The  whole  building  of  Benton's  barracks  cost  $150,000.  The 
contract  was  obtained  by  bribery,  filled  fraudulently  and  accept 
ed  with  complicity  in  the  fraud ;  and  about  $75,000  divided 
among  the  jobbers  and  inspectors. 

Camp  kettles,  picket  pins,  oats,  clothing,  blankets,  transporta- 


CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR.  87 

tion  tickets,  tug-boats ;  paying  hands  in  un current  funds,  and 
drawing  the  amount  in  government  money,  were  all  the  sources 
of  profits  and  pretexts  for  fraud. 

Equipped  in  the  style  of  the  Chinese  Emperor,  surrounded 
by  California  thieves,  Fremont  secluded  himself  from  the  pub 
lic  gaze ;  whilst  his  armies  were  defeated,  and  no  one  dared  ap 
proach  him,  and  his  contractors  were  speculating  upon  his  seclu 
sion. 

This  certificate  illustrates  the  modus  operandi: 

CAMP  SULLIVAN,  WARSAW,  Oct.  21,  1861. 
To  COL.  WM.  BISHOP  : 

The  undersigned  having  been  summoned  as  Board  of  Survey, 
to  examine  and  inspect  the  condition  of  the  horses  forwarded  to 
this  regiment  from  St.  Louis,  and  report  that  we  have  examined 
said  horses  and  find  seventy-six  fit  for  service,  five  dead  and 
three  hundred  and  thirty  under  size,  under  and  over-aged,  stifled, 
ring  bone,  blind  and  incurable,  unfit  for  any  public  service,  said 
horses  being  a  part  of  the  Missouri  contract. 
Very  respectfully, 

DAVID  McKEE,  Major, 
GEORGE  ROCKWELL,  Captain, 
JOHN  SCHEE,  Lieutenant. 

United  States  District  Attorney  Jones  was  associated  with 
Messrs.  Thompson  and  Bowen,  in  the  purchase  of  horses  and 
mules.  Their  contract  was  at  $110,80  per  head.  Bowen  sold 
out  to  Thompson  and  Jones  for  $5,000,  in  bankable  funds. 
Thompson  went  to  McKinstry  for  payment  on  horses,  Messrs. 
Thompson  and  Jones  had  furnished,  and  was  told  that  "  another 
party  was  interested  in  these  horses,  and  unless  the  $5,000  was 
deducted  by  Messrs.  Thompson  and  Jones,  none  of  the  money 
could  be  paid."  The  $5,000  was  kept  by  McKinstry,  and  the 
remainder  paid  over  to  Thompson  and  Jones. 

Over  $500,000  were  taken  from  the  government  in  hay  con 
tracts.  By  the  same  collusion,  between  the  contractor  and 
quartermaster,  $17,50  was  paid  for  rough  Prairie  hay,  with 
$8,00  per  ton  for  transportation  from  St.  Louis  to  Sedalia,  when 
the  same  quality  could  have  been  bought  anywhere  along  the 
route  to  Warsaw  for  $6,00  to  $8,00  per  ton. 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

In  such  grandeur  of  style  did  Fremont  surround  himself,  and 
such  was  the  complicated  machinery  that  was  necessary  to  his 
approach,  that  no  one  could  reach  him  with  communications. 

]STo  earthly  personage,  except  the  "GRAND  LLAMA/'  ever 
assumed  such  dignity  and  reserve  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest 
government  officials;  all  participated  in  his  dignity  and  were 
implicated  in  these  crimes,  and  profited  by  these  speculations 
which  originated  in  Congress.  Every  corrupt  congressman  had 
a  political  general,  with  corresponding  numbers  of  subordinates, 
the  creatures  of  his  power.  This  list  shows  some  of  the  uses 
made  of  the  money  that  made  the  public  debt. 

"GENERAL  OFFICERS  WITHOUT  COMMANDS. 

Secretary  Stanton  on  Wednesday  sent  to  the  Senate  the  names 
of  Major  Generals  and  Brigadier  Generals  without  commands 
equal  to  a  brigade ;  the  number  of  their  staffs,  their  pay,  com 
mutations  and  rations,  and  the  Major  and  Brigadier  General  in 
command  of  departments  and  districts,  together  with  his  opinion 
if  they  were  needed.  The  pay  is  monthly  pay  : 

Officers  of  the  Regular  Army  and  of  Volunteers,  together  with 
their  ^  respective  staffs,  without  commands,  or  commands  equal  to 
a  brigade  : 

George  B.  McClellan,  Major  General,  $355  ;  relieved  Nov 
7,1862.  No  staff. 

John  C.  Fremont,  Major  General,  $355;  relieved  August  12 
1862.  Staff— Ansel ine  Albert,  Colonel,  $164;  John  T.  Flain 
Colonel,  $164;  Charles  Zagonyi,  Colonel,  $164;  John  Pilson,' 
Lieutenant  Colonel,  $146 ;  Leonidas  Haskell,  Major,  $110  •  R? 
W.  Raymond,  Captain,  $104. 

^ David  Hunter,  Major-general,  $355;  relieved  June  12,  1863. 
No  staff.  On  a  tour  of  inspection  through  military  division  of 
the  Mississippi. 

E.  A.  Hitchcock,  Major  General,  $445 ;  has  had  no  command  or 
staff.  Commissioner  for  exchange  of  prisoners. 

Irwin  McDowell,  Major  General,  $445;  relieved  September  6, 
1862.  President  of  a  retiring  board  since  July  12,  J863.  Staff— 
Franklin  Haven,  jr.,  Captain,  $129.50,  Recorder  for  Retirinp- 
Board;  Wiadislis  Leski,  Captain,  $129.50;  J.  DeW.  Cutting 
Captain,  $127.50. 

AY.  S.  Rosccrans,  Major  General,  $445;  relieved  October  19, 


CRIMES  OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  89 

1863;  F.  S.  Bond,  Major,  $163;  Chas.  R.  Thompson,  Captain, 
$120.50;  E.  S.  Thorns,  Captain,  $120.50. 

Don  Carlos  Buell,  Major  General,  $355;  relieved  October  30, 

1862.  No  staff. 

John  A.  McClernand,  Major  General,  $355 ;  relieved  June, 

1863.  No  staff. 

Lewis  Wallace,  Major  General,  $445 ;  relieved  Nov.  16, 1862 ; 
on  Court-martial  duty  until  November  5,  1863.  No  staff. 

General  Cadwallader,  Major  General,  $445 ;  relieved  from  a 
command  equal  to  a  brigade,  August  16,  1862;  commanding 
post  at  Philadelphia  since  July  18,  1862.  Staff — I.  Harwood, 
First  Lieutenant  Forty-seventh  Pennsylvania  Volunteers, 
$119.50. 

E.  O.  C.  Ord,  Major  General,  $456 ;  relieved  October  28, 
1863,  on  account  of  sickness.  Has  since  gone  to  join  his  army 
corps. 

Samuel  P.  Heintzelman,  Major  General,  $445  ;  relieved  Oct. 
13,  1863.  President  of  General  Court-martial  in  Washington, 

D.  C.     Members  of  his  staff  serving  with  Major  General  Augur. 
ErastusD.  Keyes,  Major  General,  $445  ;  relieved  July,  1863. 

No  staff.     Member  of  Retiring  Board  at  ^Vilmington,  Delaware. 

A.  McD.  McCook,  Major  General,  $445 ;  relieved  October  9, 
1863.  Staff— Caleb  Bates,  Major,  $163;  E.  D.  Williams, 
Captain,  $129.50;  F.  J.  Jones,  Captain,  $129.50. 

T.  L.  Crittenden,  Major  General,  $445 ;  relieved  October  9, 
1863.  Staff— L.  M.  Buford,  Major,  $129.50;  J.  J.  McCook, 
Captain,  $129.50;  G.  G.  Knox,  Captain,  $129.50. 

Daniel  E.  Sickles,  Major  General,  $445 ;  relieved  July  3, 
1863,  severely  wounded  at  Gettysburg — lost  a  leg.  Staff — H. 

E.  Tremaine,  Major,  $163  ;  Alexander  Moore,  Captain,  $129  50. 
R.  H.  Milroy,  Major  General,  $355;  relieved  June  20,  1863. 

No  staff. 

A.  Doubleday,  Major  General,  $445;  relieved  July  1,  1863, 
wounded;  on  court-martial  duty.  Staff — P.  Martin,  First 
Lieutenant  Forty-seventh  New  York  Volunteers,  $119  50;  H. 
T.  Lee,  First  Lieutenant  Fourth  New  York  Artillery,  $119  50. 

R.  J.  Oglesby,  Major  General,  $355  ;  relieved  July  17,  1863. 
No  staff. 

Geo.  L.  Hartsuff,  Major  General,  $445  ;  relieved  Oct.  3, 1863. 
Ordered  before  Retiring  Board.  Staff — E.  O.  Brown,  Major, 
$163;  J.  M.  Howard,  Captain,  $129  50;  Samuel  A.  Russell, 
Captain,  $129  50. 

Andrew  Porter,  Brigadier  General,  $232 ;  relieved  in  July, 
1862.  No  staff. 


90  CEIMES  OF   THE  CIVIL   WAE. 

T.  W.  Sherman,  Brigadier  General,  $232 ;  relieved  May  27, 
1863;  severely  wounded  at  Port  Hudson.  No  staff. 

William  R.  Montgomery,  Brigadier  General,  $229  50 ;  re 
lieved  in  June,  1862;  commanding  post  of  Philadelphia,  Penn 
sylvania,  until  March  11,  1863.  Staff — J.  H.  Livingston, 
Lieutenant  Seventh  New  Jersey  Volunteers ;  J.  H.  Montgomery, 
Lieutenant  Thirteenth  Pennsylvania  Cavalry. 

James  B.  Ricketts,  Brigadier  General,  §229  50  ;  relieved  Nov. 
1862 ;  on  Military  Board  to  try  officers  in  Washington.  Stalf — 
B.  W.  Richard,  $129  56. 

James  S.  AVadsworth,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  relieved 
July  17,  1862.  Member  of  Court  of  Inquiry.  Staff— H. 
Menelee,  Major,  $163;  T.  Ellsworth,  Captain,  $129  50. 

George  W.  Morrell,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  relieved  in 
February,  1862.  Commanding  depot  for  drafted  men  at 
Indianapolis,  Indiana.  No  staff. 

John  J.  Abercrombie,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  relieved 
December  9,  1863.  Staff — William  N.  Waterbury,  First  Lieu 
tenant  Fourth  New  York  Artillery,  $119  50. 

L.  P.  Graham,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50;  relieved  Aug.  19, 
1862.  President  Board  of  Examination  of  sick  officers  at 
Annapolis,  Md.  No  staff. 

Willis  A.  Gorman,  Brigadier  General,  $232 ;  relieved  June 
27,  1863.  No  staff. 

John  G.  Barnard,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  has  had  no 
command  ;  Chief  Engineer  of  defenses  of  Washington.  Staff — 
B.  S.  Alexander,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  $187  ;  Assistant  Engineer, 
F.  R.  Mouther,  Captain,  $129  50. 

John  P.  Hatch,  Brigadier  General,  $229  50  ;  relieved  August 
30,1863;  wounded  at  second  battle  of  Bull  Run.  Commanding 
cavalry  depot  at  St.  Louis,  Mo.  No  staff. 

Alvin  Schoepf,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50  ;  relieved  Oct.  15, 
1862.  Commanding  Fort  Delaware.  No  staff. 

George  W.  Cullom,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50.  Has  had 
no  command  or  staff.  Is  chief  of  Gen.  Halleck's  staff. 

G.  B.  Tower,  Brigadier  General,  $232 ;  relieved  August  31, 
1862;  severely  wounded  at  second  Bull  Run.  No  staff. 

L.  G.  Arnold,  Brigadier  General,  $232 ;  relieved  May  23, 
1863  ;  no  staff;  sick ;  is  ordered  before  Retiring  Board. 

William  S.  Ketchum,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50;  has  had 
no  command  nor  staff;  on  duty  in  War  Department. 

Daniel  Tyler,  Brigadier  General,  $292  50 ;  relieved  June  — , 
1863;  is  commanding  district  of  Delaware;  troops  not  equal  to 
a  brigade.  Staff — E.  L.  Taylor,  Second  Lieutenant  First  Con 
necticut  Heavy  Artillery. 


CEIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAE.  91 

R.  B.  Mitchell,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  relieved  October 
23,  1863,  on  general  Court  martial  at  Washington,  D.  C.  No 
staff. 

E.  R.  S.  Canby,  Brigadier  General,  $209  50 ;  relieved  Septem 
ber  10,  1863;  on  duty  in  War  Department.     No  staff. 

Charles  Devens,  jr.,  Brigadier  General,  $299  58;  relieved 
May  26,  1863,  on  account  of  sickness;  commanding  depot  for 
drafted  men,  LovelPs  Island,  Boston  Harbor.  Staff —  D.  W. 
Hughes,  Captain,  $129  50. 

Max  Weber,  Brigadier  General,  $209  50 ;  relieved  September 
17,1862;  wounded.  No  staff.  On  general  Court  martial  at 
Washington,  D.  C. 

Neal  Dow,  Brigadier  General,  $223 ;  relieved  May  27,  1863. 
No  staff.  Wounded  and  prisoner  at  Richmond,  Va. 

Charles  S.  Greene,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  relieved  Octo 
ber  29,  1863.  No  staff.  Badly  wounded.  On  general  Court 
martial  at  Washington,  D.  C. 

John  Gibbon,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  relieved  July  3, 
1863.  Wounded  in  battle  of  Gettysburg.  No  staff.  Com 
manding  depot  for  drafted  men  in  Philadelphia. 

Charles  Griffin,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50;  relieved  October 
23,  1863,  on  account  of  sickness.  On  general  Court  martial  at 
Washington,  D.  C. 

Green  Clay  Smith,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50;  relieved 
August  28,  1863.  No  staff.  Member  of  House  of  Represen 
tatives. 

B.  S.  Roberts,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50;  relieved  Decem 
ber  2,  1863,  by  General-in-Chief.  No  staff. 

Francis  C.  Barlow,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  relieved  July 
4,  1863.  Wounded  at  battle  of  Gettysburg.  No  staff. 

Mason  Brayman,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  relieved  May 
31,  1863.  Commanding  Camp  Dennison,  Ohio.  Staff — C.  B. 
Smith,  First  Lieutenant,  Sixty-first  Illinois  Volunteers ;  $119  50. 

N.  J.Jackson,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50;  relieved  April 
17,  1863.  No  staff.  Commanding  depot  for  drafted  men  at 
Riker's  Island,  New  York  Harbor. 

F.  B.  Spinola,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50;  relieved  July  23, 
1863.     Wounded.     No  staff.     On  recruiting  service  at  Brook 
lyn,  New  York. 

Solomon  Meredith,  Brigadier  General,  $290  50;  relieved 
October  19,  1863.  Absent  on  sick  certificate.  Staff — Samuel 
H.  Meredith,  First  Lieutenant  Nineteenth  Indiana  Volunteers, 
$119  50. 

H.  B.  Carrington,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  has  had  no 
command  or  staff;  on  duty  with  Governor  of  Indiana. 


92  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

Win.  Hays,  Brigadier  General,  §299  50;  relieved  September 
16,  1863.  Assistant  Provost  Marshal  General  Southern  District 
of  New  York.  No  staff. 

Adam  K.  Slemmer,  brigadier  General,  $299  50;  has  had  no 
command  nor  staff;  President  of  Board  of  Examination  of  Sick 
Officers,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

P.  C.  Pitcher,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  has  had  no  com 
mand  nor  staff;  assistant  to  Provost  Marshal  General  at  Brat- 
tlesborough,  Vermont. 

S.  A.  Meredith,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  has  had  no  com 
mand  or  staff;  Agent  for  exchange  of  prisoners. 

E.  W.  Heath,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50;  relieved  March 
26,  1863;  no  staff ;  Commanding  depot  for  drafted  men,  Con 
cord,  New  Hampshire. 

Wm.  W.  Orrae,  Brigadier  General,  §299  50;  relieved  August 
31,  1863;  no  staff.  Commanding  at  Chicago,  Illinois. 

J.  T.  Copeland,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50  relieved  July 
1 4,  1863  ;  no  staff.  Commanding  depot  for  drafted  men  at  Pitts- 
burg,  Pennsylvania. 

S.  G.  Chaplin,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  has  no  command 
nor  staff.  Commanding  depot  for  drafted  men  at  Grand  Rapids, 
Michigan. 

T.  A.  Rowley,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50;  relieved  July  3, 
1863;  wounded  at  battle  of  Gettysburg.  Commanding  depot 
for  drafted  men  at  Portland,  Maine.  No  staff. 

Charles  T.  Campbell,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50;  relieved 
July,  30,  1863;  no  staff.  On  general  Court  martial  at  Milwau 
kee,  Wisconsin. 

H.  E.  Paine,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  relieved  July  3, 
1864;  lost  a  leg  at  Port  Hudson.  On  general  Court  martial  at 
Washington,  D.  C.  No  staff. 

G.  II.  Paul,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  relieved  July  8, 
1863;  severely  wounded  at  Gettysburg,  and  nearly  blind.  No 
staff. 

Robert  Allen,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  has  had  no  com 
mand  nor  staff.  Chief  Quartermaster  Department  of  the  West. 

D.  H.  Rucker,  Brigadier  General,  $299  50 ;  has  had  no  com 
mand  nor  staff.  Chief  Depot  Quartermaster  at  Washington, 
D.  C. 

Recapitulation. —  Number  of  Major  Generals  without  com 
mand  equal  to  brigade,  29 ;  number  of  Brigadier  Generals,  47 ; 
number  of  staff  officers  serving  on  the  staffs  of  general  officers 
without  a  command  equal  to  a  brigade:  Colonels,  3;  Lieu* 
tenant  Colonels,  2;  Majors,  7;  Captains,  17;  Lieutenants,  9. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  93 

Total  monthly  pay  of  Major  Generals,  $8,340 ;  total  monthly 
pay  of  Brigadier  Generals,  $13  671  50;  total  monthly  pay  of 
Colonels,  $490 ;  total  monthly  pay  of  Lieutenant  Colonels,  $337 ; 
total  monthly  pay  of  Majors,  §1,094;  total  monthly  pay  of  Cap 
tains,  $2,179;  total  monthly  pay  of  Lieutenants,  $1,070  50. 
Total,  $5,161  50.  Grand  total,  $27,193. 

NUMBER  OF  MAJOR  AND  BRIGADIER  GENERALS,  COMMAND 
ING  DEPARTMENTS,  DISTRICTS  AND  POSTS. —  Departments  — 
Major  Generals,  4;  Brigadier  Generals,  4.  Districts  —  Major 
Generals,  2;  Brigadier  Generals,  7.  Posts  —  Major  Generals, 
1 ;  Brigadier  Generals,  14.  Total :  Major  Generals,  7 ;  Briga 
dier  Generals,  25. 

This  list  does  not  include  Major  Generals  Couch,  Brooks, 
Stahl,  Sigel  and  others  in  Pennsylvania  and  elsewhere,  in  com 
mand  of  camps,  and  on  apparently  nominal  duties.  Their  staffs 
will  swell  the  list  and  exhibit  an  immense  expenditure  of  public 
money." 

The  Generals  rioting  at  the  public  expense  is  but  an  item. 
Hale,  'of  New  Hampshire,  declared  in  the  Senate  that,  $170,000, 
000  had  been  uselessly  (he  might  have  added  and  corruptly] 
spent  in  the  construction  of  vessels.  This  was  squandered  upon 
political  friends. 

In  St.  Louis  the  treasury  is  robbed  outright  of  $280,000. 

Every  Congressman  provides  for  his  sons,  brothers,  and  neph 
ews.  $24,000  for  one  electioneering  campaign. 

The  contingent  expenses  of  the  House  applied  for  like  purpose, 
$110,902,19. 

Two  bags  of  gold,  containing  $6,700,  stolen  from  the  Custom 
House,  Philadelphia. 

Charles  H.  Cornwall,  head  of  redemption  bureau,  has  been 
purloining  treasury  notes  instead  of  destroying  them.  Many 
millions  of  dollars  have  passed  through  his  hands  to  be  destroyed : 
no  one  knows  the  amount  purloined. 

Millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  government  stores  were  sold  to 
Confederate  sutlers,  speculators  and  contractors,  the  price  of 
which  was  pocketed  by  quartermasters. 

Frauds  perpetrated  by  Surgeon  General  Hammond,  in  the 
purchase  of  blankets  and  beef,  &c. 

Frauds  upon  the  New  York  Custom  House. 


94  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Blockade  running  by  official  connivance,  with  all  of  the  crimes 
of  treason,  embezzlement  and  defalcation. 

Cheating  the  government  in  buying  turpentine  and  other 
articles  at  low,  and  putting  them  at  exorbitant  prices. 

Using  public  stores  for  private  purposes. 

In  packing  thousands  of  barrels  of  stone  in  saw  dust,  marked 
"  corn  beef"  and  "  MESS  PORK/'  landing  them  at  some  point 
of  imminent  danger,  and  burn  it  up  to  prevent  it  from  falling 
into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  at  once  securing  the  price  of  their 
sham  meats,  and  obliterating  the  traces  of  villainy  in  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  stores. 

The  quartermasters  had  a  system  so  generally  adopted,  that 
they  dare  not  expose  each  other. 

The  superior  officers  were  so  well  sweetened  with  spoils,  they, 
in  like  manner,  were  deterred  from  complaint  to  the  Department. 

The  quartermaster  would  report  forage  never  fed,  rations  never 
ate,  transportation  never  used. 

It  was  the  opprobrium  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  the  pris 
oners  of  Camps  Douglas,  in  Chicago;  and  Chase,  in  Columbus" 
Fort  Delaware,  Johnson's  Island ;  and  every  other  prison,  died 
by  thousands,  for  the  want  of  food,  withheld  by  quartermasters, 
who  appropriated  the  money  in  commutation  to  themselves. 
Such  was  this  fraud  upon  human  life,  that  prisoners7  gums  were 
sore,  their  teeth  dropping  out,  their  faces  emaciated,  their  tongues 
parched,  their  limbs  paralyzed  by  starvation. 

Although  the  government  had  paid  the  rations  due  them,  such 
was  the  systematic  fraud  and  unquenchable  thirst  for  gain,  that 
no  suffering  could  arouse  their  sympathy,  no  horror  could  appal 
their  senses,  and  no  barbarity  could  stimulate  these  wicked  men 
to  shame  or  remorse. 

The  quartermaster  cheated  the  government  in  his  official  re 
turns.  He  cheated  the  farmer  and  planter  of  whom  he  bought 
his  provisions,  in  the  weights,  measures,  exaction  of  his  price, 
and  if  possible,  plundered  it  under  the  pretext  of  confiscation. 
He  finally  cheated  the  soldier  in  the  issue  of  his  rations,  and 
murdered  both  prisoners  and  soldiers,  by  the  substitution  of  de 
leterious  compositions  for  wholesome  food  and  poisonous  drugs 
for  medicines.  His  official  life  was  a  perpetual  series  of  cheats 


CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL   WAE.  95 

and  frauds,  impositions  and  oppressions.  The  sutler  exceeded, 
if  possible,  the  villainies  of  the  quartermaster,  availing  himself 
of  the  soldier's  necessity  and  absence  from  stores  and  supplies ; 
would  charge  him  a  thousand  per  cent,  upon  the  market  value 
of  the  necessaries  of  camp  life,  tempt  his  last  farthing  by  shame 
fully  perverting  his  appetite  with  villainous  rum,  and  filch  it 
from  his  pocket,  which  was  due  to  his  destitute  family  at  home. 
The  contractor,  who  supplied  the  immediate  wants  of  the  army, 
received  his  contract  as  a  personal  and  political  favor,  often 
with  the  distinct  understanding,  that  he  might  rob  the  govern 
ment  at  discretion.  Without  compunction  he  furnished  the 
government  with  shoddy  clothes,  ill-made  shoes  and  such  rations 
as  were  refused  at  the  regular  markets,  and  entered  into  the  gen 
eral  system  of  robbery  and  murder.  The  war  was  made  the 
occasion  and  the  apology  for  every  imaginable  species  of  fraud. 


96  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

DRIVING  THE  POOR  INTO  THE    MESHES  OF  THE  FLESH  DEALERS  AND  BLOOD 

MARKET. 

I\o  part  of  our  eventful  history  leaves  so  dark  a  shadow  upon 
our  blood-stained  escutcheon  as  that  of  the  flesh  dealers  of  the 
late  Avar.  Human  ingenuity,  never  at  fault  in  the  vast  variety 
of  her  inventions,  was  on  the  alert  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  to 
induce  the  poor  to  enter  the  army.  The  popular  mind  was 
wrought  up  to  an  artificial  phrenzy.  The  manufacturers  agreed 
with  the  bankers  to  assist  the  politicians  to  force  men  into  the 
army.  All  business  was  suspended;  the  laboring  masses  thrown 
out  of  employment,  bread  riots  threatened  the  peace  of  the  cities, 
and  general  terror  spread  throughout  the  populace. 

At  a  given  signal  the  mercenary  ecclesiastical  politicians  broke 
loose  in  their  Sabbath-day  harangues  to  inflame  the  passions  and 
prepare  the  public  mind  for  civil  war.  Simultaneously  all  of 
the  places  of  amusement,  pleasure,  revelry  and  crime  followed 
the  hue  and  cry.  Eecruiting  sergeants  went  out  among  the 
starving  rabble  to  gather  up  an  army.  Billy  Wilson  and 
his  regiment  of  tatterdemalions,  paraded  before  Ply  mouth 
Church,  to  receive  the  benediction  of  its  infidel  pastor,  who  took 
his  position  for  blood,  and  was  followed  by  thousands  of  the  mer 
cenary  clergy  on  the  mission  of  plunder.  These  gentlemen 
opened  their  pulpits  and  portrayed  to  the  poor  the  startling  alter 
native  of  enlistment  or  starvation.  They  hurled  their  horrible 
anathemas,  and  made  their  absurd  charges  against  the  Southern 
people.  They  appealed  to  the  people  to  fly  to  arms  in  defence 
of  their  homes,  which  were  neither  invaded  nor  threatened  with 
invasion ;  to  fight  for  liberty,  which  had  not  been  endangered 
except  by  the  usurpers  who  were  demanding  their  services  to 
overthrow  all  liberty ;  to  fight  for  self-government,  which  they 
were  themselves  destroying ;  to  fight  for  the  Union,  which  they 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  97 

were  pledged  to  dissolve;  to  fight  to  preserve  the  peace,  har 
mony,  strength  and  glory  of  the  country,  by  destroying  the  foun 
dations  of  society. 

These  absurdities  were  taken  up  by  the  press  and  repeated  on 
the  rostrum,  and  became  a  part  of  the  standard  literature  of  the 
day.  The  manufacturers  closed  up  their  mills,  sold  out  their 
operatives  to  the  recruiting  sergeant,  under  pretense  of  encourag 
ing  the  war,  out  of  which  they  could  build  up  a  monopoly. 
Merchants  refused  credit  to  the  poor,  to  drive  them  into  the 
army,  that  they  might  more  readily  sell  their  goods.  Capitalists 
joined  in  the  general  clamor  for  war,  that  they  might  put  the 
country  under  bonds  and  own  the  people. 

Such  was  the  death-dealing  coalition  which  withheld  employ 
ment  from  the  artizan,  laborer  and  dependent  poor  of  the  cities 
and  crowded  rural  districts.  A  brief  period  of  idleness  drove 
the  people  to  want  and  beggary.  Idleness  and  precarious  living 
prepared  the  people  for  anything  that  promised  bread.  Every 
manner  of  argument  was  used,  and  every  kind  of  bait  was  held 
out,  as  an  inducement  to  the  poor  to  rush  to  the  army  —  to  fight 
the  battles  of  plunder  for  the  rich. 

To  these  absurdities  were  added  barefaced  falsehoods,  to  mis 
lead  the  ignorant  and  delude  the  unwary. 

Under  this  terrible  pressure  the  first  call  to  arms  was  soon 
filled.  To  facilitate  recruiting,  designing  leaders  made  feigned 
provisions  for  the  families  of  enlisted  soldiers,  which  for  a  time 
were  paid  with  some  promptitude.  The  local  family  bounties 
were  doled  out  in  slow  and  stinted  payments,  and  soon  discon 
tinued  altogether.  The  sufferings  of  the  families  of  the  soldiers 
were  extreme,  and  induced  many  pitiful  and  threatening  demon 
strations —  among  others,  the  most  formidable  in  New  York,  in 
1863,  when  the  poor,  in  self-defense,  without  leaders,  system  or 
purpose,  in  the  spontaneous  madness  inspired  by  the  injustice 
suffered  from  heartless  tyrants,  broke  out  into  indiscriminate 
burning,  pillage  and  destruction  —  wasted  their  strength  and 
ruined  their  cause. 

Early  in  the  second  year  of  the  war,  it  assumed  a  purely  mer 
cenary  character,  stimulated  by  the  hopes  of  plunder.  'The  pub 
lic  morality  was  undermined,  licentiousness  reigned  to  an  extent 
7 


98  CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

without  parallel  or  precedent  among  us,  the  recital  of  which  is 
forbidden  by  decency.  Thieves,  burglars  and  highwaymen  in 
fested  every  part  of  the  country. 

The  three  worst  classes  of  men  were  let 'loose  without  restraint 
upon  society.  Deserters  from  the  Federal  army,  who  had  no 
means  of  support,  dared  not  return  home,  and,  unable  to  escape 
to  foreign  lands,  were  compelled  to  seek  subsistence  and  forage 
clandestinely,  alike  off  friend  and  foe,  if  such  persons  may  be 
said  to  have  friends;  deserters  from  the  Confederate  army,  who 
had  not  manhood  to  defend  their  homes,  families,  and  burning 
country,  from  Tartarian  desolation ;  and  whining  refugees,  who 
had  adopted  the  South  as*  their  home,  participated  in  the  govern 
ment,  and  assisted  to  inflame  the  civil  war,  and  then  fled  to  the 
Northern  States  to  put  their  persons  and  opinions  up  at  public 
sale  to  the  highest  bidder;  bounty  jumpers  and  professional 
mercenaries.  This  last  and  most  respectable  of  these  three  clas 
ses,  made  fortunes  by  accepting  bounties,  then  deserting,  then 
re-enlisting  —  travelling  in  gangs  from  place  to  place  under  the 
superintendence  of  shrewd  leaders.  These  mercenaries  would 
change  their  clothes,  color  their  hair,  shave  their  whiskers,  and 
make  all  other  external  changes  necessary  to  prevent  their  detec 
tion.  Some  of  these  unfortunate  fellows  were  executed,  but  this 
seemed  only  to  stimulate  enterprise  in  others.  The  more  the 
currency  depreciated  the  higher  the  bounty;  the  greater  the 
bounty  the  greater  the  competition  to  obtain  it.  Thousands  of  the 
vagrant  rabble  of  Canada  came  over  to  receive  the  premium 
offered  upon  human  life,  and  bore  their  treasure  safely  off,  chuck 
ling  over  the  discomfiture  of  the  poor  Americans  who  wrere 
driven  by  draft  after  draft  to  fill  quotas  at  enormous  expense, 
who  were  no  better  off  at  the  conclusion  than  in  the  beginning 
of  the  conscription. 

Confederate  soldiers  who  had  escaped  from  Northern  prisons 
and  fled  for  refuge  to  Canada,  pinched  by  the  rigid  climate, 
anxious  to  return  to  their  people,  seeing  no  other  manner  of 
escape,  enlisted  in  the  Federal  army,  took  the  bounty,  and  fled 
to  their  old  regiments  in  the  Confederate  service,  bearing  off  the 
spoils  of  plunder,  with  such  intelligence  as  opportunity  afforded, 
doing  double  and  more  effectual  good  to  their  cause  than  they 
could  have  done  in  any  other  branch  of  the  service. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  99 

Thousands  of  enlisted  soldiers,  having  first  entered  the  army 
without  bounty,  became  excited  over  the  bounty  mania,  and 
engaged  in  bounty-jumping.  They  would  leave  the  ranks  at 
every  available  opportunity,  re-enlist  and  take  the  bounty. 
Sometimes,  in  traveling  several  hundred  miles,  whole  companies 
would  disperse  through  the  connivance  of  officers,  re-enlist  several 
times,  take  bounties  and  share  the  spoils  liberally  with  their 
delinquent  commanders.  This  mercenary  spirit  spread  throughout 
every  part  of  the  army  like  a  contagion.  The  soldiers  caught 
the  infection  until  the  army  became  a  reckless,  mercenary  mob, 
or  unfortunate  conscripts  driven  to  the  slaughter. 

The  bounty  given  to  the  soldiers  gave  rise  to  a  new  class  of 
speculators,  and  a  new  traffic,  unknown  to  the  Christian  world. 
These  dealers  in  human  flesh  became  masters  of  the  blood  market, 
and  were  the  exact  counterpart  of  the  bounty-j umpers.  At  every 
corner  of  the  streets  were  posted  on  the  cellar-doors  and  stairway 
entrances,  such  advertisements  as  the  following :  "  The  highest 
price  paid  for  Substitutes  ;"  "  Substitutes  bought  and  sold  here.'' 
This  flagrant  and  abominable  traffic  was  carried  on  in  the  streets. 
The  blood-brokers  made  from  two  to  five  hundred  dollars  on  the 
sale  of  one  human  being  to  the  butcher  stalls,  just  as  body- 
snatchers  make  fortunes  in  exhuming  corpses  from  the  grave  or 
stealing  them  from  the  dead-house.  In  all  this  carnival  there 
was  no  voice  raised  to  defend  the  outraged  rights  of  the  poor. 
The  war  was  making  the  rich  richer,  which  could  only  be  ac 
complished  by  making  the  poor  poorer.  The  churches  grew 
more  gaudy,  the  theatres  more  profligate,  amusements  more  li 
centious,  the  people  more  extravagant,  bankers  more  ostentatious, 
the  lawless  more  reckless,  and  all  business  less  and  less  responsible. 
The  poor  had  no  friends.  It  was  a  crime  to  be  poor. 

11  Long,  long  labor,  little  rest ; 
Still  to  toil,  to  be  oppressed  ; 
Drained  by  taxes  of  his  store, 
Punished  next  for  being  poor; 
This  is  the  poor  wretch' slot, 
Born  within  the  straw-roofed  cot." 

They  were  drafted  into  the  army,  bought  and  sold  upon  the 
auction  blocks  like  beasts  of  the  field.  Never  before  did  such  a 
pitiless  storm  rain  its  vengeance  down  upon  the  devoted  heads 


100  CRIMES   OF   THE    CIVIL    WAE. 

of  the  people  as  that  which  fell  upon  the  helpless  classes  subject 
to  military  duty.  Large  families  were  as  carefully  picked  as 
droves  of  cattle,  separating  those  fatted  for  the  butcher's  stall 
from  the  herd.  The  children  of  widows  who  were  unable  to 
exert  a  strict  control  over  the  older  male  members  of  their  fam 
ilies,  just  entering  into  manhood  at  a  time  when  they  could  have 
supported  their  bereaved  parent,  were  hurried  off  to  the  flesh 
market.'  The  husbands  of  poor  women  who  were  barely  able 
to  struggle  against  the  hungry  wolf  of  starvation,  were  caught 
in  this  man-trap.  When  drafted,  men  were  driven  from  home 
at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  black  and  wrhite  chained  together 
like  felons ;  on  the  same  day  you  would  read  in  flaming  placards  : 
"  The  conscripts  went  singing  and  cheerful  on  their  way."  After 
the  press,  the  natural  guardian  of  Liberty,  joined  with  the  min 
istry,  the  trustees  of  the  virtue  of  the  world*  to  delude  the 
masses  into  the  army,  the  work  was  accomplished.  For  each 
recruit  obtained  fifteen  dollars  was  given  as  a  premium.  The 
pitiful  cries  of  children,  clinging  to  their  father,  whose  face 
they  were  looking  upon  for  the  last  time;  the  plaintive  appeal 
of  the  poor  woman  frantically  begging  the  release  of  her  husband, 
never  moved  a  muscle  in  the  brazen  faces  of  the  hardened 
wretches  engaged  in  this  nefarious  business. 

The  unscrupulous  flesh-broker  added  to  the  bounty,  whiskey 
highly  seasoned  with  inflammatory  drugs,  to  stultify  the  senses. 
In  this  condition  the  unfortunate  creature  was  readily  dragged 
from  his  family,  and  the  cries  of  wife  and  children  drowned  by 
the  sound  of  the  fife  and  drum. 

The  degradation  of  society  was  consummate.  Parents  might 
be  seen  selling  their  children  in  the  conscript  market,  and 
walking  complacently  away  with  the  price  of  their  own  blood 
in  their  pocket.  Since  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  where 
women  cooked  and  ate  their  own  offspring,  no  such  revolting 
traffic  had  been  known  among  a  Christian  people.  The  condition 
of  the  recruiting  service  was  the  unerring  thermometer  which 
indicated  the  depraved  moral  state  of  the  atmosphere.  These 
recruiting  stations  were  kept  in  the  dens  of  drunkenness,  in 
back  rooms  with  by-way  entrances,  where  military  officers  in 
every  stage  of  inebriety,  from  the  silly  chatter  to  the  delirium 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  101 

tremens,  with  complete  control  of  the  bar-room  and  its  inmates, 
were  turning  human  beings  into  demons  to  send  to  the  army 
from  this  pandemonium. 

Gambling  hells  were  called  into  requisition  —  located  in  dark 
cellars  or  remote  places,  out  of  the  public  gaze.  The  bounty- 
broker,  if  not  an  expert  in  the  science  of  the  thieving  games, 
would  soon  have  one  ready  to  strip  the  victim  of  everything,  so 
that  he  would  gladly  seek  refuge  in  the  army  to  hide  his  mis 
fortune  and  shame  together.  Houses  of  ill-fame  were  darkened 
by  heavy  blinds,  and  the  young  men  from  the  country  enticed 
into  their  meshes,  and  through  chicanery,  driven  to  desperation, 
sought  solace  in  a  mercenary  warfare,  where  they  might  forget 
their  shame  in  battle  and  replenish  their  purses  by  plunder. 
False  charges  of  crime  against  innocent  men  were  trumped  up. 
The  accused,  to  rid  himself  of  the  traps  of  perjury  prepared  for 
his  destruction,  choosing  the  army  only  in  preference  to  the 
State's  prison,  was  forced  to  enlist.  Only  the  hyenas  who  live 
on  human  flesh,  and  the  jackals  who  hounded  up  the  prey  for 
the  lions  in  this  shameful  traffic,  practiced  their  revolting  busi 
ness  in  the  public  gaze.  As  a  horrible  exhibition  of  the  lower 
ing  condition  of  public  morals,  this  work  was  accepted  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  was  apologized  for  by  those  who  dare  not 
justify  its  crime.  It  is  due  to  mankind,  and  the  civilization  of 
the  world,  that  these  crimes  be  made  public,  that  the  frightful 
condition  of  American  morals  should  alarm  the  whole  family  of 
man  and  frighten  them  away  from  this  horrible  path. 

Everything  conspired  to  degrade  society.  The  conscription 
bill  was  the  finishing  stroke  of  the  bloody  crime  of  usurpation, 
and  wrought  an  entire  change  in  our  institutions.  It  was  the 
first  attempt  in  our  history  to  work  a  complete  despotism.  As 
far  back  in  the  history  of  the  Britons  as  the  time  when  the  great 
Julius  Csesar  was  driven  back  to  his  scattered  fleet  and  expelled 
from  the  island  by  the  undisciplined  forces  of  Casselbelan,  the 
military  service  was  voluntary,  and  in  Rome  slaves  were  not 
allowed  to  bear  arms.  Conscription  is  unknown  in  Great 
Britain,  and  an  attempt  to  conscript  would  cost  the  sovereign 
both  throne  and  head  at  the  same  righteous  blow. 

Men  were  indiscriminately  pressed  into  the  army,  without  re- 


102  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

gtird  to  the  protection  of  age.  The  rulers  exhibited  a  want  of 
foresight  not  common.  The  woodsman  provides  for  the  second 
growth  of  the  forest  which  his  deadly  axe  is  felling  to  the 
earth, —  the  farmer  is  careful  to  preserve  his  seed-grain, —  the 
herdsman  looks  after  his  growing  stock,  which  shall  succeed  the 
sires  and  dames  now  driven  to  the  butcher's  stall ;  —  but  these 
monsters  of  despotism  set  all  the  laws  of  production  at  defiance 
in  raising  their  armies,  as  they  had  hitherto  scoffed  at  the  sim 
plest  laws  of  justice  in  the  administration  of  the  government. 
Every  male  human  being  between  the  ages  of  twenty  and  forty- 
five,  except  those  who  might  be  exempted  by  the  whims  or  bri 
bery  of  the  surgeon,  Avere  swept  into  the  army.  These  surgeons 
for  the  most  part  were  a  grave  burlesque  upon  the  medical  pro 
fession,  who  seemed  to  have  no  errand  into  the  world  except  to 
disgrace  the  science  of  arms  and  the  arts  of  war.  They  were 
superannuated  quacks,  who  had  retired  before  aspiring  midwives 
from  tlte  profession.  They  were,  with  rare  exceptions,  country 
and  cily  doctors,  without  practice  at  a  time  when  and  in  commu 
nities  where,  the  services  of  good  physicians  were  in  great  de 
mand.  They  were  brawling  politicians  in  their  immediate 
neighborhoods.  They  could  be  seen  sitting  from  breakfast  until 
dinner,  and  immediately  after  dinner  to  resume  their  seats  in  the 
exact  position  which  they  had  left  on  the  counter  of  the  country 
store,  or  just  as  faithfully  occupying  the  stranger's  warm  corner 
in  the  village  tavern,  during  the  long  winters,  asking  imperti 
nent  questions  of  travelers,  until  their  names  were  historic  in  the 
annals  of  neighborhood  scandals.  These  gentlemen  would  break 
the  monotony  of  life  and  embellish  the  general  usefulness  of  their 
career  by  entertaining  half-grown  boys,  strong-minded  women 
and  feeble-minded  men  with  speeches  at  the  nearest  school-house 
or  cross-roads.  They  would  stuff  ballot-boxes,  intimidate 
voters,  and  engineer  neighborhood  slanders.  You  could  see 
them,  on  the  sultry  days  of  a  long,  lonesome,  idle  summer,  re 
treating  with  the  approach  of  the  sun  from  one  side  to  the  other, 
in  the  shade  of  the  same  village  tavern  enlivened  with  their 
winter  haunt.  They  wore  cross-barred  breeches,  shingled  hair 
and  military  hat  —  Canada  whiskers  and  paper  shirt-collars. 
They  had  patiently  waited  for  coming  events,  and,  to  their  own 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAB.  103 

surprise,  found  tliemselves  floating  on  the  floodtide  of  prosperity. 
Every  dog  shall  have  his  day,  and  their  time  had  come.  They 
were,  of  all  others,  the  very  men  for  promotion.  They  could 
discuss  the  topics  of  the  day  with  a  narrow  volubility  which 
commended  them  to  the  authorities.  Such  was  the  specimen 
average  of  the  great  mass  of  men  who  volunteered  their  services, 
and  were  chosen  to  break  up  families,  in  their  capacity  as  ex 
amining  surgeons. 

Such  were  the  men  composing  the  examining  boards,  before 
whom  the  unfortunate  conscript  was  placed  for  approval — a 
compliment  after  which  he  did  not  seek. 

The  whole  military  strength  subject  to  draft  was  duly  recorded 
and  examined,  either  before  or  after  the  conscription.  They 
called  it  conscription ;  —  in  the  consummation  of  the  tyranny  they 
cast  off  all  dissemblance,  which  was  no  longer  necessary  to  their 
purpose.  The  names  of  men  were  cast  into  the  lottery  of  death, 
which  dealt  out  its  unwelcome  tickets  to  nearly  every  household. 
The  reigning  spirit  of  fraud  forced  itself  into  the  Provost  Marshal's 
office,  and  took  entire  possession  of  the  draft.  Provost  Marshals 
amassed  immense  fortunes,  through  agencies  of  exemption,  which 
contracted  to  free  the  citizens  from  the  fatal  draft  of  the  conscript 
wheel.  This,  like  all  other  villainies  of  the  Departments,  was 
reduced  to  a  clearly-defined  system.  Tickets  intended  for  po 
litical  enemies,  or  military  victims,  or  those  who  had  not  been 
able  to  buy  themselves  off,  were  written  and  dried  with  ordinary 
blotting  paper,  whilst  the  tickets  intended  for  political  friends 
were  heavily  sanded  on  a  full,  heavy  hand  of  ink.  The  sand 
remaining  on  the  paper,  made  them  readily  distinguishable  from 
the  other  tickets  on  the  slightest  touch.  To  cover  up  the  ap 
pearance  of  fraud,  the  drawing  was  performed  by  blind  men, 
who,  being  first  handsomely  bribed  and  duly  let  into  the  secret, 
could  each  time  bring  forth  the  ticket  of  the  doomed  man. 
Such  was  the  villainy  and  revenge  that  ruled  the  chances  of 
death  in  the  horrible  conscription  which  forced  unwilling  men  to 
perpetrate  the  awful  crime  of  murder  against  brave  men  who 
were  defending  their  homes  from  conflagration,  their  beds  from 
violation,  and  their  hearths  from  the  stain'  of  innocent  blood. 

After  his  endorsement  by  the  Provost  Marshal,  as  chosen  by 


104  CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

the  Government,  he  was  placed  in  close  care  of  the  surgeon* 
The  first  introduction  he  had  to  this  professional,  gentleman  was 
in  his  native  nakedness,  for  the  most  thorough,  critical  and  in 
solent  examination.  In  the  rural  districts,  the  examination  was 
generally  in  rooms  exposed  by  the  windows  and  other  apertures 
to  the  public  gaze,  making  amusement  for  the  crowd  outside 
watching  and  jeering,  which  was  done  to  deter  the  timid  from 
submission  to  examination  at  all.  When  the  performance  com 
menced,  the  unfortunate  victim  stood  pale  as  death  —  trembling 
like  an  aspen  leaf  in  an  autumn  storm.  The  surgeon,  with  a 
coarse  grin,  would  lift  the  upper  lip,  put  his  forefinger  into  his 
mouth  and  examine  the  teeth,  just  after  the  manner  of  the  horse- 
jockey  examining  his  nag  —  making  the  conscript  walk,  trot  and 
kick  in  truly  equine  style  —  then  lift  up  his  hand  and  cough, 
subject  to  unnameable  indignities  at  the  discretion  of  the  surgeon, 
until  the  crowd  was  fully  satisfied  with  their  victim.  He  was 
then  removed  to  make  way  for  new  subjects,  who  in  succession 
followed  each  other.  After  this  examination  was  concluded,  it 
did  not  by  any  means  follow  that  the  conscript  was  either  held 
or  freed,  according  to  the  condition  of  his  health  or  qualification 
for  the  service.  The  question  of  his  qualification  was  determined 
by  entirely  irrelevant  considerations.  If  he  was  a  relative  or 
personal  friend,  or  could  buy  off,  he  was  generally  accounted 
safe.  On  the  other  hand,  if  a  personal  enemy,  or  poor,  all  ef 
forts  at  exemption  were  more  than  thrown  away.  The  exemption 
board  was  a  very  powerful  engine  of  political  power.  Thousands 
were  exempted  as  the  price  of  their  votes  at  the  coming  elec 
tion. 

As  soon  as  the  recruit  was  accepted  as  fit  for  service,  the  flesh 
ghoul  was  ready  to  buy  him  for  enlistment. 

These  narrow-minded  politicians  made  the  examining  board 
a  fruitful  source  of  gratification  of  hate,  spite,  and  an  immense 
revenue.  Thousands  of  able-bodied  men,  in  the  vigor  of  life, 
and  fulness  of  strength,  were  exempted,  whilst  many  poor  men 
who  had  never  been  fit  for  any  military  duty  whatever,  were 
dragged  to  the  army,  or  died  on  the  way.  A  most  painful  instance 
occurred,  in  which  the  unfortunate  conscript,  who  was  rudely  hur 
ried  through  the  examination  and  approved  by  the  brutal  surgeon, 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  105 

took  a  fit  of  coughing  and  bled  to  death  in  the  room  where  he 
was  examined.  Hundreds  who  had  been  exempted,  boasted  in 
the  streets  that  their  political  opinions  had  secured  their  exemp 
tion.  The  partizans  declared  their  determination  to  conscript  all 
those  who  believed  the  war  a  crime.  This  became  a  matter  of 
grave  reflection.  Many  believed  it  a  crime  to  go  to  war  at  all ; 
a  greater  crime  to  destroy  the  right  of  self-government  in  making 
war  on  those  who  defended  it ;  a  still  greater  crime  to  butcher 
their  own  kindred ;  an  enormous  offense  to  burn  up  the  homes 
and  fields,  desecrate  the  churches,  break  down  the  enclosures 
and  monuments  of  the  dead  of  a  Christian  and  highly  civilized 
people.  Millions  saw  that  this  war  upon  the  South  was  the 
successful  instrument  of  enslaving  the  whole  country,  and  that 
every  man  and  dollar  devoted  to  it  was  a  contribution  to  our 
degradation,  which  was  already  hopeless.  All  that  was  sacred 
in  conviction,  holy  in  religion,  and  solemn  in  divine  obligation, 
was  imperiled.  To  surrender  these  convictions  debased  the 
man,  yet  this  was  the  demand  made  in  the  insulted  name  of  the 
God  of  Truth. 

It  was  to  commit  these  crimes,  and  destroy  the  safeguards 
which  protected  our  liberty,  that  the  debt  was  created  to  make 
our  slavery  perpetual.  Upon  whose  conscience  and  by  what  law 
can  any  such  debt  bind  a  free  and  enlightened  people  ? 


106  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

VIOLATION  OF  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 

THE  TREATY  WITH  MEXICO  is  the  American  doctrine  of  the 
conduct  of  war. 

Article  22nd.  If  (which  is  not  to  be  expected  and  which  God 
forbid)  war  should  unhappily  break  out  between  the  two  repub 
lics,  they  do  now,  with  a  view  to  such  calamity,  solemnly  pledge 
themselves  to  each  other  and  to  the  world  to  observe  the  follow 
ing  rules,  absolutely  where  the  nature  of  the  subject  permits, 
and  as  closely  as  possible  in  all  cases  where  such  absolute  obser 
vance  shall  be  impossible. 

1.  The  merchants  of  either  republic,  then  residing  in  the  other, 
shall  be  allowed  to  remain  twelve  months,  (for  those  dwelling 
in  the  interior,  and  six  months  for  those  dwelling  at  the  sea 
ports),  to  collect  their  debts  and  settle  their  affairs ;  during 
which  period  they  shall  enjoy  the  same  protection,  and  be  on  the 
same  footing  in  all  respects,  as  the  citizens  or  subjects  of  the 
most  friendly  nations ;  and,  at  the  expiration  thereof,  or  at  any 
time  before.  They  shall  have  full  liberty  to  depart,  carrying  off 
all  their  effects  without  molestation  or  hindrance ;  conforming 
therein  to  the  same  laws  which  the  citizens  or  subjects  of  the 
most  friendly  nations  are  required  to  conform  to. 

Upon  the  entrance  of  the  armies  of  either  nation  into  the  terri 
tories  of  the  other,  women  and  children,  ecclesiastics,  scholars  of 
every  faculty,  cultivators  of  the  earth,  merchants,  artisans,  man 
ufacturers  and  fishermen,  unarmed  and  inhabiting  unfortified 
towns,  villages  or  places,  and  in  general  all  persons  whose  occu 
pations  are  for  the  common  subsistence  and  benefit  of  mankind, 
shall  be  allowed  to  continue  their  respective  employments  unmo 
lested  in  their  persons.  JS"or  shall  their  houses  or  goods  be  burnt, 
or  otherwise  destroyed,  nor  their  cattle  taken,  nor  their  fields 
wasted  by  the  armed  force  into  whose  power,  by  the  events  of 
war  they  may  happen  to  fall;  but  if  the  necessity  arise  to  take 
anything  from  them  for  the  use  of  such  armed  force,  the  same 
shall  be  paid  for  at  an  equitable  price.  All  churches,  hospitals, 
schools,  colleges,  libraries  and  other  establishments  for  charita- 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK.  107 

ble  and  beneficent  purposes,  shall  be  respected,  and  all  persons 
connected  with  the  same,  protected  in  the  discharge  of  their 
duties  and  the  pursuit  of  their  vocations. 

2.  In  order  that  the  fate  of  prisoners  of  war  may  be  allevia 
ted,  all  such  practices  as  those  of  sending  them  into  distant,  in 
clement  or  unwholesome  districts,  or  crowding  them  into  close 
and  noxious  places,  shall  be  studiously  avoided.  They  shall  not 
be  confined  in  dungeons,  prison-ships  or  prisons ;  nor  be  put  in 
irons,  or  bound  or  otherwise  restrained  in  the  use  of  their  limbs. 
The  officers  shall  enjoy  liberty  on  their  paroles  within  conve 
nient  districts  and  have  comfortable  quarters.  And  the  common 
soldiers  shall  be  disposed  in  cantonments,  open  and  extensive 
enough  for  air  and  exercise,  and  lodged  in  barracks  as  roomy 
and  good  as  are  provided  by  the  party  in  whose  power  they  are, 
for  its  own  troops.  But  if  any  officer  shall  break  his  parole  by 
leaving  the  district  so  assigned  him,  or  any  other  soldier  shall 
escape  from  the  limits  of  his  cantonment,  after  they  shall  have 
been  designated  to  him,  such  individual,  officer,  or  other  prisoner, 
shall  forfeit  so  much  of  the  benefit  of  this  article,  as  provides  for 
his  liberty  on  parole  or  in  cantonment ;  and  if  any  soldier  so 
breaking  his  parole,  or  any  common  soldier  so  escaping  from  the 
limits  assigned  him,  shall  afterward  be  found  in  arms  previously 
to  his  being  regularly  exchanged,  the  person  so  offending  shall 
be  dealt  with  according  to  the  established  laws  of  war.  The 
officers  shall  be  daily  furnished  by  the  party  in  whose  power 
they  are,  with  as  many  rations  and  of  the  same  articles  as  are 
allowed  either  in  kind  or  by  commutation  to  officers  of  equal 
rank  in  its  own  army,  and  all  others  shall  be  daily  furnished 
with  such  rations  as  are  allowed  to  a  common  soldier  in  its  own 
service,  the  value  of  all  which  supplies  shall,  at  the  close  of  the 
war,  or  at  periods  to  be  agreed  upon  by  the  respective  comman 
ders,  be  paid  by  the  other  party  on  the  mutual  adjustment  of 
accounts  for  the  subsistence  of  prisoners ;  and  such  accounts  shall 
not  be  mingled  with  or  set  off  against  any  others,  nor  the  balance 
due  on  them  be  withheld  as  a  compensation  or  reprisal  for  any 
cause  whatever,  real  or  pretended.  Each  party  shall  be  allowed 
to  keep  a  commissary  of  prisoners,  appointed  by  itself  with  every 
cantonment  of  prisoners  in  possession  of  the  other,  which  com 
missary  shall  see  the  prisoners  as  often  as  he  pleases,  shall  be 
allowed  to  receive  exempt  from  all  duties  or  taxes  and  to  dis 
tribute  whatever  comforts  may  be  sent  to  them  by  their  friends ; 
and  shall  be  free  to  transmit  his  reports  in  open  letters  to  the 
party  by  whom  he  is  employed.  And  it  is  declared  that  neither 
the  pretence  that  war  dissolves  all  treaties,  nor  any  other,  what- 


108  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

ever  shall  be  considered  as  annulling  or  suspending  the  solemn 
covenant  contained  in  this  article ;  on  the  contrary,  the  state  of 
war  is  that  precisely  that  for  which  it  is  provided,  and  during 
which  its  stipulations  are  to  be  sacredly  observed  as  the  most 
acknowledged  obligations  under  the  law  of  nature  or  of  nations. 

This  treaty  is  a  compendium  of  the  laws  of  nations,  which 
must  govern  us  until  we  abandon  Christianity  as  a  system  and 
civilization  as  a  law  among  men. 

This  treaty  was  made  after  the  greatest  chieftain  then  living 
—  had  fully  possessed  the  Capital  of  the  State  invaded.  When 
the  arms  of  a  fallen  foe  had  yielded  all  hope  of  resistance,  and 
the  Mexicans,  the  weakest  and  most  degraded  of  all  our  neighbor 
ing  Powers,  were  incapable  of  longer  endurance  at  our  mercy. 

This  treaty  was  made  when  the  Evangelical  Church,  in 
the  fervor  of  the  living  faith,  breathed  the  pure  spirit  of  char 
ity,  Love  to  God  and  love  to  man  —  long  before  bishops  joined 
with  infidels  to  possess  and  despoil  other  peoples,  —  Churches, 
claiming  "  the  war  power  "  to  rob  and  possess,  and  appealing  to 
the  civil  power  to  ratify  the  robbery,  or  thanking  Congress  for 
instituting  military  governments. 

The  Senate  which  ratified  this  treaty,  was  the  immediate  des 
cendants  of  the  Revolutionary  fathers.  Elevated  high  above 
all  mere  passion  when  the  great  men  of  the  Christian  era  were 
zealously  seeking  the  reformation  of  bad  governments  and  the 
destruction  of  arbitrary  power;  when  the  true  spirit  of  political 
justice  pervaded  the  institutions  of  the  country,  and  real  friends 
of  progress  looked  to  the  extirpation  of  war  as  a  remedy  for 
any  of  the  evils  of  government. 

No  more  terrible  commentary  can  be  made  upon  the  conduct 
of  the  late  civil  war  than  this  treaty  with  Mexico ;  that  the  duty 
and  the  crime  of  the  American  people  may  be  placed  in  exact 
justaposition.  The  following  description  of  the  vandalism  of 
war,  is  from  the  pen  of  one  of  the  most  distinguished  jurists  of 
the  country : 

"  On  the  20th  of  December,  1862,  Gen.  Grant  was  endeavoring 
to  push  his  army  of  eighty  thousand  men  through  the  interior 
of  the  State  of  Mississippi,  along  the  line  of  the  Central  Rail 
Road,  with  the  view  of  capturing  Jackson  and  assailing  Yicks- 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL  WAK.  109 

burg  from  the  East.  His  progress  had  been  slow  and  tedious, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  he  was  compelled  to  rebuild  every  rail 
road  bridge  and  trestle  along  the  track,  while  the  heavy  rains  of 
the  season  had  rendered  the  ordinary  roads  almost  impassable  by 
army  trains  and  artillery.  His  advance  was  within  seven  miles 
of  Grenada,  but  the  main  body  of  his  force  was  on  the  banks  of 
the  Yockany,  eight  miles  south  of  Oxford,  considerably  depleted 
by  the  absence  of  the  numerous  detachments  required  to  garri 
son  the  towns  and  guard  the  railroad,  from  Columbus,  Ky., 
which  was  his  base  of  supplies,  to  Oxford,  Mississippi,  which 
was  the  most  southerly  point  to  which  the  road  had  been  re 
paired.  Several  weeks  had  been  spent  reconstructing  the  long 
bridge  over  the  Tallahatchie,  seventeen  miles  south  of  Holly 
Springs,  and,  in  the  meantime,  the  immense  supplies  of  every 
description,  required  for  so  large  an  invading  army,  had  .been 
transported  from  Columbus  to  Holly  Springs,  where  they  were 
placed  in  depot,  awaiting  the  completion  of  the  bridge  below. 
Federal  officers  estimated  the  cost  of  those  supplies  at  seven 
millions  of  dollars.  A  Federal  garrison  of  some  two  thousand 
men  occupied  the  town,  as  a  protection  to  the  stores.  Grant  and 
his  men  were  confident  and  boastful,  expecting  to  occupy  Vicks- 
burg  before  the  middle  of  January. 

Just  before  daylight  on  the  morning  of  the  20th  of  Decem 
ber,  the  Confederate  General  Van  Dorn,  at  the  head  of  a  small 
cavalry  force,  surprised  and  captured  the  garrison  of  Holly 
Springs,  without  the  loss  of  a  man  on  his  part.  The  Federal 
loss  was  but  one  killed  and  two  wounded.  Scarcely  a  score  of 
the  garrison  contrived  to  escape.  Van  Dorn  proceeded  at  once 
to  destroy  Grant's  supplies,  by  firing  the  buildings  in  which 
they  were  stored.  He  also  burnt  several  thousand  bales  of  cot 
ton,  most  of  which,  the  planters  in  the  vicinity  had  been 
plundered,  and  which  was  then  awaiting  shipment  to  the  North. 
A  long  train  of  cars,  laden  with  army  supplies,  which  was  on  the 
point  for  starting  for  Oxford,  shared  the  same  fate.  By  three 
o'clock,  P.  M.,  the  work  of  destruction  was  completed,  and  Van 
Dorn,  who  was  well  aware  that  a  largely  superior  force  might 
be  concentrated  against  him  there  within  a  few  hours,  paroled 
his  prisoners  upon  the  spot  and  withdrew  towards  Jackson,  Tenn. 
By  this  single  blow,  alone,  the  entire  plan  of  Grant's  campaign 
was  disastrously  defeated.  He  was  unable,  for  want  of  ammu 
nition,  to  give  battle  to  Pemberton  at  Grenada;  the  country 
around  him,  as  far  as  his  foraging  parties  could  scour  it  with 
safety,  was  stripped  of  all  supplies;  his  communications  with 
Columbus  and  with  Memphis  were  cut  off  by  Van  Dorn's  opera- 


110  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

tions  upon  the  railroad  above,  and  a  hurried  retreat  upon  Mem 
phis  was  his  only  resource  against  actual  starvation.  This  retro 
grade  movement  was  commenced  on  the  20th  of  December,  and 
on  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day,  the  Federal  troops,  crest-fallen 
and  exasperated,  re-entered  Holly  Springs.  As  they  marched 
through  the  streets,  the  citizens,  gazing  upon  them  through  the 
windows,  were  admonished,  by  brick-bats  and  other  missiles 
hurled  at  them  from  the  ranks,  that  they  were  to  be  held  respon 
sible  for  the  brilliant  exploit  of  Van  Dorn. 

Those  ferocious  soldiers,  who,  on  their  backward  march  from 
Oxford,  through  a  thickly-settled  region,  had  burned  every  house 
along  the  road,  were  at  once  turned  loose  to  gratify  their  cu 
pidity  and  wreak  their  malice  upon  the  citizens.  The  work  of 
indiscriminate  pillage  was  instantly  inaugurated.  Every  dwelling 
was  'soon  swarming  with  men  in  uniform,  some  of  whom  wore 
the  shoulder-straps  of  captains  and  colonels,  who,  with  oaths  and 
curses,  brandishing  their  weapons,  and  threatening  death  to  any 
who  should  oppose  them,  ransacked  every  nook  and  corner,  every 
drawer,  closet,  cupboard,  work-box,  trunk  or  other  receptacle  in 
which  money,  plate  and  other  valuables  might  be  stored,  and 
"confiscated"  or  "jay-hawked"  —  to  use  their  own  expressive 
synonym  for  robbery  —  whatever  of  value  they  were  able  to 
carry  off  with  them.  Nothing  came  amiss  to  these  marauders. 
Provisions,  money,  silver  plate,  jewelry,  watches,  blankets  and 
other  covering,  parlor  ornaments,  daguerreotypes,  books,  china, 
glass-ware,  table  cutlery,  kitchen  utensils,  clothing,  (and  espe 
cially  rich  and  costly  articles  of  ladies'  apparel,  with  which  these 
brigands  afterwards  decked  the  sable  damsels  who  filled  their 
camps,)  all  such  articles,  as  well  as  the  contents  of  the  numerous 
stores  in  the  town,  were  speedily  appropriated.  Furniture,  in 
some  instances,  was  uninjured  by  the  soldiers,  either  during  or 
after  the  process  of  plunder.  In  others,  such  articles  as  ward 
robes  and  bureaus,  which  were  locked,  were  broken  open,  the 
soldiers  refusing,  even  when  the  keys  were  presented  to  them,  to 
use  them,  or  suffer  them  to  be  used  for  unlocking  them.  In 
other  cases  still,  all  the  furniture  in  the  house  was  smashed,  and 
everything  of  value,  that  had  not  been  stolen,  wantonly  destroyed. 
While  this  work  of  pillage  was  proceeding,  many  of  the  soldiers 
announced  their  purpose  of  burning  the  town,  and  declared  that 
they  had  been  ordered  to  do  so. 

Within  half  an  hour  after  the  Federal  troops  had  re-entered 
the  town,  a  dense  smoke  rising  from  the  residence  cf  Mrs.  John 
D.  Martin,  a  wealthy  widow  lady,  indicated  that  the  torch  of 
the  incendiary  had  been  brought  into  requisition.  The  soldiers 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAK.  Ill 

fired  her  premises,  including  the  negro  houses  and  all  the  other 
buildings  on  the  grounds,  and  stood  by,  preventing  her  servants 
from  removing  anything  of  hers  from  the  dwelling,  or  of  their 
own  from  their  habitations,  until  the  flames  had  made  such  pro 
gress  that  the  buildings  could  no  longer  be  approached.  It  was 
avowed  that  this  was  a  punishment  inflicted  upon  Mrs.  Martin 
for  her  conduct  on  the  previous  day.  The  crime  of  which  she 
had  been  guilty  was  this  :  She  had  a  son,  a  captain  of  cavalry 
in  the  Confederate  army.  He  came  to  Holly  Springs,  the  day 
before,  with  Van  Dorn  ;  and  his  mother,  seeing  him  at  a  distance, 
requested  the  writer  to  call  him  to  her.  He  came  and  dismounted 
by  her  side,  and  she  kissed  him  in  the  street.  She  detained  him 
as  he  was  about  to  hasten  away,  to  beg  him  to  show  any  kindness  in. 
his  power  to  a  Federal  officer,  naming  him,  who  had  that  morning 
been  taken  prisoner  by  Van  Dorn,  and  who,  said  she, "  has  afforded 
protection  to  your  poor  mother  and  your  little  brother  and  sister." 
Promising  to  remember  the  benefactor  of  his  mother,  he  rode  off 
to  rejoin  his  company.  The  writer  witnessed  the  entire  interview 
between  the  mother  and  the  son,  and  he  has  set  forth,  in  all  its 
enormity,  the  particulars  of  that  offense  which  was  visited  upon 
her  by  the  conflagration  of  her  sumptuous  home,  with  all  its 
treasures  of  art  and  beauty,  and  its  thousand  holy  mementoes  of 
other  years. 

Wm.  F.  Mason,  Esq.,  upwards  of  sixty  years  of  age,  and  an 
invalid,  for  his  presumption  in  daring  to  implore  some  soldiers 
not  to  enter  the  room  where  his  wife  lay  sick,  was  knocked  down 
with  the  buts  of  their  muskets,  kicked,  trampled  on,  and  left  for 
dead.  His  dwelling,  filled  with  rich  and  costly  furniture,  was 
then  completely  "  gutted."  Three  weeks  afterwards,  his  life  was 
still  considered  to  be  in  danger  from  the  frightful  injuries  he  had 
sustained.  Many  other  citizens  were  subjected  to  personal  vio 
lence,  while  none,  whatever  their  age,  sex  or  condition,  escaped 
the  most  brutal  insults  that  could  be  heaped  upon  them.  The 
epithets  applied  to  ladies  by  the  freebooters  who  thronged  through 
their  houses  day  after  day,  are  unfit  for  publication.  ("  Damned 
bitch  of  a  secesh  whore"  was  one  of  the  most  decent  of  those 
which  were  unusually  employed.) 

As  darkness  drew  on,  the  soldiers  fired  other  dwellings,  in  di- 
ferent  parts  of  the  town ;  and,  during  the  whole  of  that  Aveary 
night,  the  wretched  inhabitants,  fearing  to  lie  down,  lest  they 
should  be  consumed  in  their  houses,  watched  the  flames  that 
were  devouring  the  houses  of  their  neighbors,  not  knowing  at 
what  moment  it  might  become  necessary  for  them  also  to  flee 
for  their  lives.  For  two  long  weeks  afterwards,  while  the  Fed- 


112  CHIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR. 

erals  continued  to  occupy  the  town,  and  the  different  divisions, 
with  their  long  trains,  were  slowly  passing  through,  did  this 
reign  of  terror  continue.  Not  a  night  passed,  during  that  period, 
that  was  not  lit  up  by  the  flames  of  blazing  houses ;  and  not  a 
woman  dared  to  disrobe  herself  for  slumber,  or  even  to  seek  re 
pose  at  all  during  the  night,  unless  she  knew  that  the  house  was 
watched  by  those  who  would  give  her  prompt  notice  of  it  should 
it  be  fired.  More  than  a  third  of  the  town  was  reduced  to  ashes, 
and,  had  it  been  compactly  built,  scarcely  a  dwelling  would  have 
escaped. 

Personal  insults  were  not  those  alone  to  which  the  people  of 
Holly  Springs  were  compelled  to  submit.  The  Presbyterian 
Church  was  used,  without  necessity,  as  a  depository  of  ordnance 
stores.  The  Episcopal  Church,  of  which  the  late  Dr.  J.  H. 
Ingraham  had  been  rector,  was  broken  open,  the  seats  destroyed, 
the  carpets  cut  up,  the  prayer-books  mutilated,  the  organ  chopped 
open  with  axes  and  the  pipes  taken  out  of  it  by  the  soldiers  to 
amuse  themselves  with,  upon  the  streets,  the  altar  disgustingly 
defiled,  the  walls  defaced  with  obscene  inscriptions,  and  the  build 
ing  itself  devoted  to  the  vilest  of  human  uses.  Nor  was  this  all. 
Even  the  beautiful  cemetery  of  the  town  was  not  spared  from  the 
hand  of  ruthless  violence.  The  soldiers  entered  its  hallowed 
precincts  with  sledge-hammers  and  axes,  broke  down  the  orna 
mental  iron  railings  around  the  private  lots,  made  a  wreck  of  the 
costly  monuments  that  marked  the  resting-place  of  the  departed, 
uprooted  the  shrubbery,  and  left  that  spot,  which,  but  the  day 
before,  had  been  so  lovely,  a  scene  of  ruin  and  devastation. 

Gen.  Grant,  during  the  commission  of  these  outrages,  had  his 
quarters  in  the  finest  house  in  the  town  —  that  of  AVrm.  Henry 
Cox,  Esq.  He  could  not  have  been  ignorant  of  what  was  going 
on ;  and  yet  if  he  ever  made  an  effort  to  prevent  these  atrocities 
or  to  punish  the  offenders,  or  if  he  ever  expressed  a  regret  that 
they  had  occurred,  the  citizens  of  Holly  Springs  never  learned 
the  fact.  If  a  commander,  who  shrinks  from  the  responsibility 
of  openly  ordering  the  perpetration  of  such  barbarities  by  his 
troops,  wishes  to  encourage  his  men  in  acts  of  vandalism,  he  has  but 
to  imitate  the  example  of  Gen.  Grant  at  Holly  Springs  —  shut 
his  eyes  and  say  nothing. 

VANDALISM   IN   OXFORD,  MISSISSIPPI. 

During  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1862,  Gen.  Pemberton,  at 
the  head  of  a  considerable  Confederate  force,  held  a  strongly- 
fortified  position  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Tallahatchie  Elver, 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  113 

thirteen  miles  north  of  Oxford,  Mississippi,  on  the  line  of  the 
Mississippi  Central  Railroad.  Late  in  the  month  of  November 
of  that  year,  while  Gen.  Grant,  with  a  vastly  superior  army, 
was  pressing  him  in  front,  from  the  north,  Gen.  Pemberton, 
learning  that  his  eommunications  with  Jackson  and  Yicksburg 
were  threatened  by  an  expedition  which  had  set  out  from  Helena 
with  the  object  of  capturing  Grenada,  decided  to  fall  back  him 
self  upon  Grenada.  He  withdrew  from  the  river  without  loss 
of  men  or  stores,  and  occupied  his  new  position  at  his  leisure,  his 
rear-guard  only  having,  in  the  meantime,  a  few  unimportant 
skirmishes  with  Grant's  advance.  One  of  these  skirmishes  oc 
curred  a  short  distance  north  of  Oxford,  and  was  prolonged 
only  until  a  train  of  cars  laden  with  army  stores,  could  be  safely 
got  away  from  the  railroad  station.  The  Confederates  then  re 
tired  unmolested,  completely  evacuating  the  town,  and  some  time 
elapsed  before  the  Federals  entered  it.  The  citizens  were  aware 
that  Grant's  forces  were  at  hand,  and  that  they  might  be  expected 
at  any  moment  to  make  their  appearance  ;  but  being  themselves 
unarmed  and  defenceless,  they  apprehended  no  personal  danger, 
and  many  of  them,  led  by  curiosity,  remained  upon  the  street. 
They  were  destined  shortly  to  be  undeceived.  The  Federal 
advance,  consisting  of  Kansas  and  Wisconsin  cavalry,  armed 
with  repeating  rifles,  rushed  into  the  town  like  a  whirlwind, 
firing  indiscriminately  upon  every  one  found  in  the  streets.  A 
boy  of  fourteen,  the  son  of  a  widowed  mother,  was  shot  down 
while  he  was  chopping  wood  in  the  yard.  A  negro  man,  belonging 
to  Dr.  R.  R.  Chilton,  went  to  a  gate  with  a  couple  of  his  master's 
children,  to  look  at  the  soldiers  as  they  passed.  A  volley  was 
directed  at  the  group,  and  the  poor  negro  fell,  shot  through  both 
thighs.  An  elderly  citizen,  quietly  walking  along  the  street, 
was  fired  on  by  a  squad  of  cavalry.  Drawing  a  white  handker 
chief  from  his  pocket,  he  waved  it  at  them  in  token  of  surrender. 
The  murderous  wretches  replied  by  another  volley.  He  then 
endeavored  to  gain  the  shelter  of  a  neighboring  building,  and, 
as  he  ran,  the  soldiers  galloped  forward  and  sent  a  third  volley 
after  him,  but  he  escaped  unhurt.  Doubtless,  had  the  workman 
ship  of  the  "  Union  "  soldiers  been  commensurate  with  their 
malignity,  at  least  two  score  of  inoffensive  citizens  would  then 
have  been  butchered  in  cold  blood,  for  more  than  fifty  of  them 
were  fired  on.  It  is  almost  needless  to  observe  that  this  conduct 
of  the  troops  was  not  provoked  by  any  attempted  resistance  on 
the  part  of  the  citizens. 

The  cavalry  rapidly  scoured  the  different  streets  of  the  town, 
and   then,  finding  that  they  had  no  armed  enemies  to  fear,  they 
8 


114  CRIMES    OF   THE    CIVIL   WAR. 

commenced  the  work  of  pillage  and  destruction.  It  was  late  in 
the  afternoon  when  they  entered  the  town.  Before  the  morning 
dawned  again,  the  place  had  been  so  thoroughly  sacked  that 
little  remained  to  tempt  the  cupidity  of  the  spoiler.  Those 
"jay hawkers'7  well  understood  the  art  of  "  making  night  hideous" 
to  the  inhabitants,  whose  dwellings  were  overrun  by  ferocious 
and  brutal  ruffians,  many  of  them  intoxicated,  who  searched 
everywhere  for  valuables,  appropriated  all  that  they  coveted, 
including,  in  many  cases,  the  personal  ornaments  and  even  the 
dresses  of  ladies;  demanding  the  surrender  of  watches  and  money 
at  the  mouth  of  the  pistol,  and  wantonly  destroying  what  they 
were  unable  to  remove.  Looking-glasses  were  smashed,  pianos 
broken  up,  carpets  cut  to  pieces,  china  demolished,  paintings 
mutilated  by  thrusting  bayonets  through  them,  windows  destroyed, 
feather  beds  ripped  up  and  their  contents  given  to  the  winds, 
and,  in  many  cases,  the  large  stocks  of  provisions  which  the 
families  of  that  region  were  accustomed  to  keep  in  their  smoke 
houses,  were  rendered  unfit  for  food  by  knocking  in  the  heads  of 
barrels  containing  sugar,  molasses,  flour,  vinegar,  etc.,  and 
mingling  all  together  with  salt  and  ordure  from  the  stable.  Many 
a  family  who  on  the  morning  of  the  2nd  of  December  were 
surrounded  with  every  comfort  and  supplied  with  stores  sufficient 
for  a  twelvemonth,  were  twenty-four  hours  thereafter,  without  a 
morsel  of  food  upon  their  premises,  or  even  the  means  of  preparing 
the  most  simple  meal,  for  they  had  been  deprived  of  everything 
that  could  serve  as  a  cooking  utensil.  From  time  to  time,  during 
the  3rd  and  4th  of  December,  fresh  bodies  of  Federal  troops 
arrived  in  the  town,  and  these,  in  turn,  swarmed  through  every 
habitation,  eagerly  seeking  to  glean  something  from  the  wreck 
that  had  been  left  by  their  comrades,  and  exasperated  against  the 
citizens  because  they  had  so  little  remaining  to  be  plundered. 
In  one  instance  a  negro  woman  was  encouraged  to  make  a  per 
sonal  assault  upon  her  mistress,  and  armed  soldiers  stood  by, 
declaring  that  they  would  shoot  the  latter  if  she  resisted.  Refined 
and  delicate  ladies  were  compelled  to  listen  to  every  species  of 
profane  and  obscene  language ;  to  submit  to  the  grossest  and 
most  cruel  insults,  and,  too  often,  even  to  the  only  outrages  that 
can  be  perpetrated  against  womanhood. 

Every  horse,  mule,  ox,  cow,  hog,  sheep  and  fowl  belonging  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  town  and  of  the  surrounding  country,  as 
far  as  Grant's  foraging  parties  could  penetrate,  was  remorselessly 
confiscated ;  all  the  corn,  forage  and  provisions  that  could  be 
found  were  seized,  and  nothing  paid  for.  Cotton  was  worth  sixty 
cents  a  pound.  Grant  issued  an  order  forbidding  sales  at  a 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  115 

higher  price  than  twenty-five  cents.  If  owners  refused  to  sell 
at  that  price,  it  was  taken  from  them  without  payment.  One 
man,  Mr.  Fernandez,  preferred  to  burn  his  cotton.  In  revenge, 
the  Federals  burned  every  building  on  his  plantation,  with  all 
that  they  contained. 

Gen.  Grant  was  in  Oxford  when  a  portion  of  the  outrages 
above  enumerated  were  committed  by  his  troops,  and  he  made 
no  efforts  either  to  prevent  them  or  to  punish  the  perpetrators. 

One  of  the  highest  offences  known  to  military  law  is  the  vio 
lation,  by  a  soldier,  of  a  safe  conduct  granted  by  his  commander. 
Gen.  Grant  however,  while  at  Oxford,  suffered  his  pass  to  be 
violated  with  impunity.  The  Hon.  James  M.  Howry,  of  Oxford, 
obtained  a'  pass  from  Gen.  Grant,  requiring  all  United  States 
troops  to  permit  him  to  proceed  unmolested,  with  a  wagon  and 
certain  trunks,  to  his  plantation,  some  forty  miles  below.  Judge 
Howry  was  met,  about  five  miles  from  town,  by  a  company  of 
Federal  cavalry  belonging  to  Quinby's  Division,  who  compelled 
him  to  halt.  He  produced  Gen.  Grant's  pass,  countersigned  by 
Gen.  Quinby,  but  the  soldiers,  cursing  him  and  Grant  and 
Quinby,  refused  to  respect  the  pass.  They  stripped  the  Judge 
to  the  skin,  robbed  him  of  all  the  money  found  upon  his  person, 
broke  open  and  rifled  his  trunks,  stole  his  mules  and  saddle- 
horses,  and  left  him  in  the  wood.  He  made  his  way  back  to 
Oxford  and  reported  the  facts  to  Gen.  Grant,  who  listened  im 
patiently  to  his  statement  and  refused  to  afford  him  the  slightest 
redress. 

Judge  Howry  was  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of 
the  University  of  Mississippi,  a  literary  institution  of  high  rep 
utation,  located  at  Oxford.  The  voluminous  archives  of  the 
University  were  deposited  in  Judge  Howry's  office,  and  the 
Federal  officers  were  aware  of  this  fact.  Such  documents  else 
where  have  ever  been  regarded,  by  the  custom  of  all  civilized 
countries,  as  sacred  from  the  hand  of  violence  in  war.  But,  in 
Oxford,  the  Federal  soldiers  were  permitted  by  their  officers  in 
open  day,  to  break  open  Judge  Howry's  office  and  to  scatter  the 
documents  found  therein,  which  can  never  be  replaced,  in  the 
deep  mud  of  the  streets. 

The  collection  of  the  State  Geological  Survey,  which  had  been 
gathered  and  arranged  with  vast  labor  during  many  years,  were 
contained  in  the  University  buildings  at  Oxford.  The  Federal 
soldiery  were  permitted  to  despoil  that  collection  of  everything 
they  considered  curious,  leaving  what  remained  an  almost  undis- 
tinguishable  mass  of  rubbish." 

A  most  reliable  and  responsible  colonel  of  the  Federal  army 


116  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

told  the  writer  that  after  the  new  levies  were  taken  to  the  West 
ern  armies,  that  he  travelled  from  Corinth  down  through  the 
State  of  Mississippi  by  the  lurid  light  of  burning  houses,  plan 
tations  and  cotton  fields ;  until  the  whole  heavens  were  covered 
with  a  sheet  of  flame,  night  after  night,  until  they  reached 
Holly  Spring  by  the  illumination  of  these  infernal  bonfires.  Every 
attempt  to  arrest  this  work  upon  the  part  of  the  old  regulars  was 
at  the  peril  of  their  lives,  which  were  endangered  by  the  inflam 
matory  harangues  of  the  chaplains  and  demagogues.  These  are 
given  as  illustrations  of  the  character  of  the  war. 

THE   BRUTAL   HUNTER  —  UNPARALLELED    FIENDISHNESS. 

[From  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  September  13.] 

The  following  letter,  not  written  for  publication,  is  from  the 
daughter  of  a  gentleman  in  Clark  county,  Va.,  whose  house  was 
lately  burned  by  the  enemy.  He  had  previously  been  despoiled 
of  all  his,  sheep,  cattle,  horses  and  hogs,  by  the  invaders.  It 
tells  of  coarse  brutality  and  fiendishness  unequaled  in  civilized 
warfare : 

CLARK  COUNTY,  VA.,  Aug.  24,  1864. 

MY  DEAR  SISTERS  :  —  Since  that  terrible  day  that  we  were 
deprived  of  house  and  home,  I  have  neither  had  time  nor  nerve 
to  write  to  you ;  but  now  that  an  opportunity  offers  to  let  you 
hear  of  our  personal  safety,  I  must  try  to  tell  you  of  all  that  has 
befallen  us.  I  feel  almost  frantic  to  think  of  it,  and  night  and 
day  the  horrors  of  the  scene  are  present  with  me.  To-day,  two 
weeks  ago,  my  aunt,  Mrs.  S.,  was  taken  sick,  and  day  after  day  she 
grew  worse  until  Thursday  night,  at  half-past  12  o'clock,  she 
breathed  her  last.  Poor  mother  was  with  her  and  wrote  imme 
diately  to  father  and  myself  to  come,  and  just  as  I  lighted  the 
lamp  to  read  the  note,  the  report  of  firearms  reached  our  ears.  I 
immediately  extinguished  the  light,  as  we  were  surrounded  by 
the  enemy,  and  from  what  we  had  heard  in  the  evening,  we  con 
jectured  the  shots  proceeded  from  the  picket-post  which  Mosby 
had  attacked. 

Of  course,  father  and  I  could  not  go  to  mother  until  morning, 
he  then  went  and  mother  returned  with  him.  Just  at  the  mo 
ment  of  return,  sixty  Yankees  rode  up  to  the  house.  One  of 
the  officers  seized  the  horse  mother  rode  and  demanded  to  know 
where  she  had  been  ;  mother  was  completely  overcome  and  could 
not  answer.  I  replied,  "she  is  just  from  the  death-bed  of  her 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK.  117 

sister,  and  if  you  have  any  heart  or  manly  feeling,  tell  me  quiet 
ly  your  business,  and  I  will  attend  to  it."  He  turned  to  father 
with  an  expression  of  fiendish  delight  on  his  countenance,  and 
said :  "  I  have  orders  to  burn  every  house  on  your  farm." 
Father  demanded  the  charges  against  him,  and  he  (Captain)  re 
plied  :  "  Because  Mosby  murdered  one  of  our  pickets  last  night, 
and  there  was  a  light  seen  in  this  house,  and  we  know  Mosby 
came  from  this  house."  We  protested  he  had  not,  and  told 
him  the  reason  we  had  a  light  for  a  minute. 
.  Father  then  begged  to  be  taken  to  Gen.  Ouster  as  a  hostage, 
and  asked  him  to  spare  his  house  on  account  of  his  sick  wife, 
sick  son-in-law,  and  two  helpless  little  infants.  The  Captain 
replied,  "  Men,  to  your  work ;  take  what  you  want  and  fire  as 
you  go."  "  Guard  that  man  down  here,  and  carry  him  up  to 
headquarters."  "  That  man  "  was  my  sick  husband,  and  in  my 
agony  I  fell  on  my  knees  to  that  brute  to  spare  my  sick  husband 
and  take  me.  With  a  mocking  laugh  at  my  request  he  sent  his 
surgeon  to  examine  him,  and  thank  God,  the  surgeon  had  a 
heart,  and  instead  of  saying  anything  to  Dr.  B.,  he  said  to  me, 
"  Come,  go  with  me,  and  I  will  help  you  to  save  some  clothes." 

The  house  was  then  on  fire,  and  the  men  plundering  and  firing 
as  they  went.  My  poor  old  father  and  myself  went  back  to 
the  captain  and  besought  him,  for  God's  sake,  to  come  and  stop 
the  men  until  Ave  could  get  even  a  change  of  clothes.  He  re 
plied,  "  My  presence  is  not  needed ;"  and  at  last  when  we  began 
to  throw  some  things  out  of  the  windows,  and  he  thought  he 
might  pick  up  some  valuables,  he  carne  up  to  the  house.  Near 
ly  everything  we  threw  out  was  stolen  —  clothes,  jewelry,  silver, 
and  something  of  everything  they  carried  off.  Some  of  them 
had  bundles  as  large  as  a  child  before  and  behind  them.  One 
of  them  swore  I  should  not  take  from  the  burning  house  my 
dear  little  boy  Charlie,  who  was  asleep,  because  they  said  he 
would  grow  up  to  be  a  rebel. 

I  pushed  by  the  man  and  told  him,  as  soon  as  he  was  large 
enough  I  would  put  a  gun  in  his  hands  and  tell  him  of  all  we 
had  suffered,  and  if  he  did  not  fight  with  an  unequalled  bravery, 
he  would  not  be  my  son.  One  of  the  brutes  held  my  mother  in 
the  store-room,  while  some  others  rifled  it  and  set  it  on  fire.  One 
took  me  by  the  shoulders  and  threw  me  from  the  top  to  the  bot 
tom  of  the  steps.  The  last  time  I  was  in  the  house  I  seized  my 
box  of  jewelry ;  a  man,  or  rather  a  devil,  jerked  it  from  me,  and 
scattered  the  contents  on  the  floor.  I  caught  up  one  of  my  dia 
mond  rings,  the  bracelet  sister  C.  gave  me,  and  the  children's 
bracelets  and  several  other  things,  when  the  wretch  seized  me 
and  held  me,  and  got  them  from  me. 


118  CRIMES   OF   THE    CIVIL    WAE. 

In  less  than  fifteen  minutes  the  flames  had  enveloped  the 
whole  house.  The  labors  of  mother  and  father  for  thirty-three 
years  were  destroyed  in  fifteen  minutes.  They  rifled  father's 
secretary,  where  all  his  public  and  private  papers  were,  and  then 
set  the  pieces  of  furniture  on  fire. 

The  officers  went  off  loaded  with  the  richest  part  of  the  plun 
der.  Not  a  carpet  was  saved,  not  a  comfort,  not  a  bureau,  not  a 
washstancl,  but  one  pitcher  and  basin.  They  stole  two  dozen 
handsome  silver  spoons,  nearly  all  the  jewelry  belonging  to 
mother  and  myself,  twenty-six  pairs  of  linen  sheets,  and  three 
hundred  pounds  of  sugar  were  burned  and  stolen. 

Oh !  the  worst  is  yet  to  be  told.  When  the  flames  burst  from 
every  part  of  our  dear,  old  comfortable  home,  my  darling 
mother's  reason  gave  way.  For  twenty-four  hours  she  was  a 
raving  maniac.  She  fainted  away  time  after  time,  and  after  she 
became  sensible,  it  would  have  touched  a  heart  of  stone  to  have 
witnessed  her  sorrow.  She  grieved  for  the  home  where  her 
children  had  been  born  and  bred  and  died,  where  she  had  seen 
sorrow  and  pleasure.  Every  corner  and  spot  in  it  and  every 
thing  in  it  was  associated  with  some  dear  remembrance.  My 
poor  father  bore  it  like  a  hero,  and  with  tears  streaming  down 
his  face,  said  :  "Oh!  my  child,  you  have  let  the  Yankees  shake 
your  confidence  in  God."  In  my  agony  I  had  called  out:  "Oh  ! 
God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  us  ?  " 

Oh!  no  words  can  describe  the  horrors  of  that  day.  The 
next  day  (Saturday)  we  had  to  place  the  remains  of  my  dear 
aunt  in  the  grave  without  a  word.  The  vandals  would  not  per 
mit  a  minister  to  come  out  of  Berryville  or  from  the  neighbor 
hood  ;  we  had  to  send  to  Loudon  for  a  coffin  and  to  put  the 
grave  in  the  garden.  We  had  a  supply  of  flour  which  could 
have  been  saved,  but  the  wretches  knocked  the  heads  of  the  bar 
rels  out  to  prevent  our  moving  it.  The  trunks  containing  the 
winter  clothes  were  rifled.  I  lost  nearly  all  my  clothes. 

What  they  did  not  carry  off  they  set  on  fire.  A  handsome 
silk  dress  which  mother  had  given  me  and  had  been  made  but  a 
few  weeks,  one  of  them  took,  and  said,  "  he  knew  that  he  was 
going  to  take  that  to  his  old  woman/'  I  was  reaching  to  the  top 
of  a  press,  getting  down  some  house  linen,  when  a  demon  took  a 
large  scrap  bag,  and  two  cambric  wrappers  and  set  them  on  fire 
just  under  me.  I  saw  my  danger  and  sprang  over  to  save  my 
life,  though  now  I  feel  the  effects  of  the  heated  flames.  Tell 
brother  T.  I  fought  for  his  picture,  and  when  I  ibuncl  I  could 
could  not  save  it,  I  broke  it  to  pieces. 

Some  days  afterward  mother  and  I  went  to  Gen.  Ouster's  head- 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  119 

quarters  to  try  to  recover  some  of  father's  papers  and  some  of  the 
silver.  Of  course  we  got  none.  But  we  told  him  of  the  con 
duct  of  his  men  and  officers,  and  told  him  we  would  publish  it 
to  the  world.  They  burned  three  houses ;  ours  was  the  first. 
A  short  time  after  they  left  our  house,  Mosby  passed  by  and 
overtook  them,  and  killed,  it  is  said,  thirty  of  them.  Even  my 
purse  was  stolen  with  every  cent  of  money  we  had. 


120  CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

TORTURE,  CRUELTY  AND  OUTRAGE. 
THE    MONSTER    M°NEIL. 

IN  the  town  of  Palmyra,  Missouri,  John  McNeil  had  his 
headquarters  as  colonel  of  a  Missouri  regiment  and  commander 
of  the  post. 

An  officious  person  who  had  acted  as  a  spy  and  common  in 
former,  named  Andrew  Allsman,  who  was  engaged  in  the  de 
testable  business  of  having  his  neighbors  arrested  upon  charges 
of  disloyalty,  and  securing  the  scoutings  and  ravages  from 
every  house  that  was  not  summarily  burned  to  the  earth.  This 
had  so  long  been  his  vocation  that  he  was  universally  loathed 
by  people  of  every  shade  of  opinion,  and  soon  brought  upon 
himself  the  fate  common  to  all  such  persons  in  every  county, 
where  the  spirit  of  self-defence  is  an  element  of  human  nature. 
In  his  search  for  victims  for  the  prison  which  was  kept  at  Pal 
myra,  this  man  was  missed ;  nobody  knew  when,  or  where,  or 
how;  whether  drowned  in  the  river  absconding  from  the  army, 
or  killed  by  Federal  soldiers  or  concealed  Confederates. 

His  failure  to  return  was  made  the  pretext  for  a  series  of  the 
most  horrible  crimes  ever  recorded  in  any  country,  civilized  or 
barbarous. 

John  McNeil  is  a  Nova  Scotian  by  birth,  the  descendant  of 
the  expelled  tories  of  the  American  Revolution,'  who  took  sides 
against  the  colonists  in  the  rebellion  against  Great  Britain.  He 
is  by  trade  a  hatter,  who  made  some  money  in  the  Mexican  war. 
He  had  lived  in  Saint  Louis  for  many  years,  simply  distin 
guished  for  his  activity  in  grog-shop  politics.  He  was  soon  in 
the  market  on  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  and  received  a  colonel's 
commission.  Without  courage,  military  knowledge  or  expe- 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  121 

rience,  he  entered  the  army  for  the  purpose  of  murder  and  rob 
bery. 

As  the  tool  of  McNeil,  W.  H.  Strachan  acted  in  the  capacity 
of  provost  marshal  general,  whose  enormities  exceed  anything 
in  the  wicked  annals  of  human  depravity. 

At  the  instigation  of  McNeil,  the  provost  marshal  went  to 
the  prison,  filled  with  quiet,  inoffensive  farmers,  and  selected  ten 
men  of  age  and  respectability ;  among  the  rest  an  old  Judge  of 
Knox  county,  all  of  whom  had  helpless  families  at  home,  in  des 
titution  and  unprotected. 

These  names,  which  should  be  remembered  as  among  the  vic 
tims  of  the  reign  of  the  Monster  of  the  Christian  era,  were  as 
follows : 

William  Baker,  Thomas  Huston,  Morgan  Bixler,  John  Y.Mc- 
Pheeters  of  Lewis,  Herbert  Hudson,  John  M.  Wade,  Marion 
Lavi  of  Rails,  Capt.  Thomas  A.  Snyder  of  Monroe,  Eleazer 
Lake  of  Scotland,  and  Hiram  Smith  of  Knox  county,  were  sen 
tenced  to  be  shot  without  trial  or  any  of  the  forms  of  military 
law,  by  a  military  commander  whose  grade  could  not  have  given 
ratification  to  a  court-martial,  had  one  been  held;  had  the  parties 
been  charged  with  crime,  which  they  were  not. 

Mr.  Humphreys,  also  in  prison,  was  to  have  been  shot  instead  of 
one  of  those  named  above,  but  which  one  the  author  has  not  the 
means  of  knowing.  The  change  in  the  persons  transpired  in 
this  way : 

Early  on  the  morning  of  the  execution,  Mrs.  Mary  Humphreys 
came  to  see  her  husband  before  his  death,  to  intercede  for  his  re- 
'  lease.  She  first  went  to  see  McNeil,  who  frowned,  stormed,  and 
let  loose  a  volley  of  such  horrible  oaths  at  her  for  daring  to 
plead  for  her  husband's  life  that  she  fled  away  through  fear,  and 
when  she  closed  the  door,  the  unnameable  fiend  cursed  her  with 
blasphemous  assurances  that  her  husband  should  be  dispatched 
to  hell  at  one  o'clock.  The  poor  affrighted  woman,  with  bleed 
ing  heart,  hastened  to  the  provost  marshal's  office,  and  quite 
fainted  away  as  she  besought  him  to  intercede  with  McNeil  for 
the  preservation  of  her  husband's  life.  With  a  savage,  taunting 
grin,  Strachan  said  "  that  may  be  done,  madam,  by  getting  me 
three  hundred  dollars."  This  she  did  through  the  kindness  of 
two  gentlemen,  who  advanced  the  money  at  once. 


122 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 


She  returned  with  the  money  and  paid  it  to  Strachan.  Mrs. 
Humphrey  had  her  little  daughter  by  her  side,  when  she  sank 
into  her  seat  with  exhaustion.  Scarcely  had  she  taken  her  place, 
until  Strachan  told  her  that  she  had  still  to  do  something  else  to 
secure  her  husband's  release.  At  this  moment  he  thrust  the  lit 
tle  girl  out  of  the  door  and  threatened  the  fainting  woman  with 
the  execution  of  her  husband.  She  fell  as  a  lifeless  corpse  to 
the  floor.  After  he  had  filled  his  pockets  with  money  and  satia 
ted  his  lust,  the  provost  marshal  released  poor  Humphreys. 
Another  innocent  victim  was  taken  in  his  place  to  cover  up  the 
hideous  crime.  The  newspapers  were  commanded  to  publish 
the  falsehood  that  some  one  had  volunteered  to  die  in  his  stead. 
The  additional  murdered  man  was  a  sacrifice  to  the  venality, 
murder  and  rape  of  the  provost  marshal.  The  victim  was  an 
unobtrusive  young  man,  caught  up  and  dragged  off  as  a  wild 
beast  to  the  slaughter,  without  any  further  notice  than  was  neces 
sary  to  prepare  to  walk  from  the  jail  to  the  scene  of  murder. 

The  other  eleven  were  notified  of  their  contemplated  murder 
some  eighteen  hours  before  the  appointed  moment  of  the  tragedy. 
Eev.  James  S.  Green,  of  the  city  of  Palmyra,  remained  with 
them  through  the  night. 

Between  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock  the  next  day,  three  gov 
ernment  wagons  drove  to  the  jail  with  ten  rough  boxes,  upon 
which  the  ten  martyrs  to  brutal  demon  ism,  were  seated. 

This  appalling  spectacle  was  made  more  frightful  by  the  rough 
jeering  of  the  mercenaries  who  guarded  the  victims  to  the  place 
of  butchery.  The  jolting  wagons  were  driven  through  street 
after  street,  which  was  abandoned  by  every  human  being ;  wo 
men  fainting  at  the  awful  spectacle,  clasping  their  children  more 
closely  to  their  bosoms,  as  the  murderers,  with  blood  pictured  in 
their  countenances,  were  screaming  in  hoarse  tones  the  word  of 
command. 

The  company  of  stranger  adventurers,  mercenaries,  and  the 
vilest  resident  population,  formed  a  circle  at  the  scene,  in  imita 
tion  of  the  Roman  slaughter  in  the  time  of  JSTero,  Caligula  and 
Commodus,  to  feast  their  sensual  eyes  on  blood  and  amuse  them 
selves  with  the  piteous  shrieks  of  the  dying  men.  This  infer 
nal  saturnalia  commenced  with  music.  Everything  was  done 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  123 

which  might  harrow  the  feelings  and  torture  the  soul.  The  rough 
coffins  were  placed  before  them  in  such  manner  as  to  excite  horror; 
the  grave  opened  its  yawning  mouth  to  terrify  them ;  but  they 
stood  unmoved  amid  the  frenzied,  murderous  mob.  Capt.  Snyder 
was  dressed  in  beautiful  black,  with  white  vest ;  magnificent  head 
covered  with  rich  wavy  locks  that  fell  around  his  broad  should 
ers  like  the  mane  of  a  lion.  When  the  mercenaries  were  pre 
paring  to  consummate  this  horrible  crime,  they  at  last  seemed 
conscious  of  the  character  and  the  magnitude  of  this  awful  work, 
grew  pale  and  trembled :  even  the  brutal  Strachan  seemed  alarm 
ed  at  his  own  nameless  and  compounded  crimes  of  lust,  avarice 
and  murder.  Rev.  Mr.  Rhodes,  a  meek  and  unobtrusive  min 
ister  of  the  Baptist  Church,  prayed  with  the  dying  men,  and 
Strachan  reached  out  his  bloody  hands  to  bid  them  adieu.  They 
generously  forgave  their  murderers. 

To  lengthen  out  the  cruel  tragedy,  the  guns  were  fired  at  dif 
ferent  times  that  death  might  be  dealt  out  in  broken  periods. 
Two  of  the  men  were  killed  outright.  Capt.  Snyder  sprang  to 
his  feet,  faced  the  soldiers,  pierced  their  cowardly  faces  with  his 
unbandaged  eagle  eye  fell  forward  to  rise  no  more. 

The  other  seven  were  wounded,  mangled  and  butchered  in 
detail,  with  pistols ;  whilst  the  ear  was  rent  with  their  piteous 
groans,  praying  to  find  refuge  in  death.  The  whole  butchery 
occupied  some  fifteen  minutes. 

The  country  was  appalled  at  the  recital  of  these  crimes,  and 
incredulous  of  the  facts. 

The  newspapers  were  suppressed  to  prevent  their  publication, 
and  the  exposure  of  the  perpetrators.  The  punishment  of  the 
criminals  was  demanded  by  public  justice  and  expected  by 
everybody  except  the  criminals,  who  well  understood  the  cruelty 
and  corruption  of  the  Executive  Department. 

To  cover  up  these  crimes  by  a  judicial  farce,  nearly  two  years 
afterwards,  charges  were  preferred  against  Strachan ;  he  was  con 
victed  upon  the  foregoing  state  of  facts,  and  sentence  passed  upon 
him.  The  sentence  was  remitted  and  Strachan  promoted. 

For  this  crime  McNeil  was  promoted  by  Lincoln  to  brigadier 
general  and  kept  in  office.  In  all  of  the  history  of  European 
wars,  Asiatic  butcheries,  Indian  cruelties  and  negro  atrocities, 


124  CEIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

there  can  be  found  no  parallel  instance  in  which  the  murder  of 
men  without  any  of  the  forms  of  trial,  was  accompanied  with 
the  rape  of  the  wives  of  those  designated  by  the  lottery  of  death 
as  the  price  of  the  husband's  liberty.  There  was  nothing  left 
undone  to  make  the  whole  scene  cruel,  loathesome  and  revolting. 

This  outrage  unpunished,  gave  license  for  crime,  cruelty,  out 
rage  and  disorder  everywhere.  It  would  require  the  pen  of 
every  writer,  the  paper  of  every  manufacturer,  for  a  year,  to 
recount  them ;  the  human  imagination  sickens  in  contemplation 
of  them. 

In  the  next  year  after  the  MclSfeil  butchery,  in  the  neighboring 
city  of  Hannibal,  occurred  a  similar  crime,  equally  monstrous 
in  its  details. 

J.  T.  K.  Heyward  commanded  a  body  of  enrolled  brigands  in 
Marion  County,  known  as  the  railroad  brigade,  who  foraged 
upon  the  people  and  plundered  the  country. 

Hugh  B.  Bloom,  a  drunken  soldier  of  the  Federal  army,  re 
turning  to  his  regiment,  muttered  some  offensive  words  in  the 
presence  of  Heyward's  men.  Bloom  was  immediately  dragged 
from  the  steamboat  upon  which  he  was  traveling  and  carried  be 
fore  Heyward. 

Heyward  improvised  a  military  court,  tried  the  drunken  man, 
and  condemned  him  to  immediate  death. 

Whilst  the  poor  wretch  was  unconscious  of  his  condition,  dis 
qualified  for  self-defence,  and  unable  to  understand  the  fearful 
nature  of  his  peril,  he  was  hurried  off  to  the  most  public  place, 
on  the  river  side ;  the  people  of  the  town,  trembling  with  fear, 
were  compelled  to  witness  the  horrid  scene. 

The  worst  was  yet  to  come.  Old  and  respectable  citizens,  be 
cause  known  for  their  quiet  demeanor  and  hatred  of  violence, 
were  dragged  down  to  witness  the  horrid  spectacle.  Twelve  of 
these  gentlemen  were  presented  with  muskets,  and  commanded 
to  fire  at  the  trembling  inebriate  sitting  upon  his  coffin. 

To  enforce  this  fiendish  order  to  make  private  gentlemen  com 
mit  public  murder,  Heyward's  brigands  were  placed  immediately 
behind  the  squad  of  private  citizens  and  commanded  to  fire  upon 
the  first  who  hesitated  to  fire  at  Bloom.  As  the  shuddering  man 
sank  down  beneath  the  terrible  volley  of  musketry,  Heyward 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL,   WAK.  125 

turned  upon  the  people  and  warned  them  of  their  impending  fate 
in  the  murder  of  this  man. 

The  spectacle  was  revolting  in  itself.  It  was  terrible  in  view 
of  the  fact,  that  these  militia  were  unauthorized  by  law  for  any 
such  purpose ;  that  the  execution  was  without  the  shadow  of  law, 
that  the  victim  was  a  Union  soldier,  who  had  committed  no  of 
fence  ;  that  the  men  who  were  forced  to  do  this  horrid  work  were 
unwilling  to  commit  the  crime,  and  protested  against  being  made 
the  instruments  of  such  bloody  horror.  But  how  ineffably 
shocking  that  the  perpetrator,  Hey  ward,  should  be  a  member  of 
a  Christian  church,  and  assume  the  office  of  Sabbath  School 
teacher ;  that  little  children  should  look  upon  the  horrible  visage 
of  the  murderous  wretch  as  their  instructor. 

This  Heyward,  secluded  from  the  enquiring  world,  overawing 
and  corrupting  the  press  of  his  own  neighborhood,  was  the  most 
satanic  of  all  the  local  tyrants  of  Missouri.  • 

At  one  time  he  gathered  all  of  the  old  and  respectable  citizens 
of  Hannibal,  including  such  highly  cultivated  gentlemen  of 
spotless  escutcheon,  as  Hon.  A.  W.  Lamb,  into  a  dilapidated, 
falling  house,  and  placed  powder  under  it  to  blow  it  to  atoms,  in 
case  Hannibal  should  be  visited  by  rebels. 

In  Monroe  county,  two  farmers  were  arrested  by  the  provost 
marshal's  guard,  taken  a  short  distance  from  home,  shot  down 
and  thrown  into  the  field  with  the  swine. 

On  the  next  day  the  recognized  fragments  of  the  bodies  were 
gathered  up  by  the  neighbors  and  carried  to  their  respective 
houses,  and  prepared  for  interment. 

The  citizens  were  so  respectable,  the  murder  so  brutal,  the 
outrage  so  revolting,  that  people  gathered  from  a  large  distance 
around,  to  bury  in  decency  the  remains  of  those  who  had  been 
so  shockingly  destroyed. 

When  the  funeral  procession  had  been  formed,  the  provost  mar 
shal  sent  his  guard  to  disperse  them ;  declaring  that  no  person 
opposed  to  the  war,  should  have  public  burial. 

The  heart-broken  families  had  to  go  unattended  to  the  grave 
of  their  respective  head ;  each  one  dreading  the  danger  that  beset 
the  highway  upon  their  return  home ;  and  feeling  even  more  in 
danger  from  marauders  in  the  secret  chambers  of  their  own 
domicil. 


120  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Daring  this  drunken  reign  of  horrors,  innocent  people  were 
shot  down  upon  their  door  sills,  called  into  their  gardens  upon 
pretended  business,  butchered  and  left  lying,  that  their  families 
might  not  know  their  whereabouts  until  their  bodies  were  de 
composed.  Women  were  ravished,  houses  burned,  plantations 
laid  waste. 

Judge  Richardson  was  shot  whilst  in  the  court  house  in  which 
he  presided,  in  Scotland  county.  Rev.  Wm.  Headlee,  a  minister 
of  the  gospel,  was  shot  upon  the  highway ;  and  all  of  these  mur 
derers,  robbers  and  incendiaries,  are  yet  at  large. 

Dr.  Glasscock,  a  physician,  was  dragged  from  his  own  house 
by  soldiers,  under  pretence  of  taking  him  to  court  as  a  witness, 
against  the  earnest  prayers  of  his  children  and  slaves,  was  shot, 
mangled,  disfigured  and  mutilated,  then  brought  to  his  own 
yard  and  thrown  down  like  a  dead  animal. 

To  prevent  punishment  by  law,  these  criminals  repealed  the 
laws  against  their  crimes ;  and  provided  in  the  constitution  that 
crime  should  go  unpunished  if  committed  by  themselves. 

To  make  themselves  secure  in  their  crime  and  to  give  immu 
nity  from  punishment,  they  disfranchised  the  masses  of  the  peo 
ple  ;  and  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis  the  criminal  vote  elected  the 
criminal  McNeil  as  the  sheriff  of  the  county  of  St.  Louis  —  the 
tool  of  the  weakest  and  most  malignant  tyrants. 


ST.  GEORGE,  TUCKER  Co.,  VA.,  Nov.  2&th,  1862. 
MR.  ADAM  HARPER, 

SIR  —  In  consequence  of  certain  robberies  which  have  been 
committed  on  Union  citizens  of  this  county  by  bands  of  gueril 
las,  you  are  hereby  assessed  to  the  amount  ($285.00)  two  hundred 
arid  eighty-five  dollars,  to  make  good  their  losses ;  and  upon 
your  failure  to  comply  with  the  above  assessment  by  the  8th  day 
of  December,  the  following  order  has  been  issued  to  me  by  Brio-. 
Gen.  R.  H.  Milroy: 

You  are  to  burn  their  houses,  seize  all  their  property  and  shoot 
them.  You  will  be  sure  that  you  strictly  carry  out  this  order. 

You  will  inform  the  inhabitants  for  ten  or  fifteen  miles  around 
your  camp,  on  all  the  roads  approaching  the  town  upon  which 
the  enemy  may  approach,  that  they  must  dash  in  and  give  you 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  127 

notice,  and  upon  any  one  failing  to  do  so,  you  will  burn  their 
houses  and  shoot  the  men. 

By  order  Brig.  Gen.  R.  H.  MILROY, 

H.  KELLOG,  Capt.  Commanding  Post. 

Mr.  Harper  was  an  old  gentlemen,  over  82  years  of  age,  a 
cripple,  and  can  neither  read  nor  write  the  English  language, 
though  a  good  German  scholar.  This  gentlemen  was  one  of 
twelve  children,  had  served  in  the  war  of  1812,  was  the  son  of 
a  Revolutionary  soldier  who  bore  his  musket  during  the  whole 
war,  inherited  a  woodland  tract,  and  built  up  a  substantial  home 
in  the  midst  of  Western  Virginia. 

This  was  only  one  of  a  class  which  swept  over  West  Virginia, 
and  left  the  beautiful  valleys  of  Tygart  and  the  Potomac  rivers 
in  ashes  and  desolation. 

It  is  to  pay  for  crimes  like  these,  and  keep  in  employment  the 
men  who  committed  them  that  created  the  debt  now  weighing 
the  people  down.  It  was  to  pay  such  monsters,  with  their  tools, 
that  money  was  refunded  by  the  general  government  to  the  State 
of  Missouri  and  West  Virginia,  and  the  taxes  saddled  upon  the 
people  of  the  country. 

The  following  letter  gives  its  own  explanation : 

MACON,  GA.,  October  7,  1867. 
HENRY  CLAY  DEAN,  Mount  Pleasant,  Iowa : 

DEAR  SIR — I  have  read  your  late  communication  addressed 
to  "  The  Prisoners  of  War,  and  victims  of  arbitrary  arrests  in 
the  United  States  of  America. " 

You  allege  that  "  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  refused  to 
extend  the  investigation  contemplated  by  a  resolution,  adopted 
by  that  body  on  the  10th  of  July,  1867,  appointing  certain  par 
ties  to  investigate  the  treatment  of  prisoners  of  war,  and  Union 
citizens  held  by  the  Confederate  authorities  during  the  rebellion, 
to  the  prisoners  of  war,  victims  of '  arbitrary  power  and  military 
usurpation  by  the  authority  of  the  Federal  administration." 

Appreciating  your  object  "to  put  the  truth  upon  the  record," 
and  concurring  in  your  patriotic  suggestion  that  "  it  is  the  duty 
of  every  American  to  look  to  the  honor  of  his  country  and  the 
preservation  of  the  truth  of  history, "  I  have  felt  constrained  to 


128  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

respond  to  the  call  made  in  your  circular,  so  far  as  to  acquaint 
the  public,  through  you,  with  the  following  precise,  simple,  and 
unexaggerated  statement  of  facts : 

When  the  Capitol  of  the  Confederate  States  was  evacuated, 
the  specie  belonging  to  the  Richmond  banks  was  removed,  with 
the  archives  of  the  government,  to  Washington,  Ga.  Early 
after  the  close  of  the  war,  a  wagon  train  conveying  this  specie 
from  Washington  to  Abbeville,  S.  C.,  was  attacked  and  robbed 
of  an  amount  approximating  to  $100,000,  by  a  body  of  disband 
ed  cavalry  of  the  Confederate  army. 

A  few  weeks  subsequent  to  this  event,  Brigadier  General  Ed 
ward  A.  Wild,  with  an  escort  consisting  of  twelve  negro  soldiers, 
under  the  command  of  Lieutenant  Seaton,  of  Captain  Alfred 
Cooley's  company,  (156th  Regiment  of  N.  Y.  Volunteers)  repaired 
to  the  scene  of  the  robbery  in  the  vicinity  of  Danburg,  Wilkes 
county,  Georgia.  By  the  order  of  Gen.  Wild,  and  in  his  pres 
ence,  A.  D.  Chenault,  a  Methodist  minister,  weighing  275 
pounds,  his  brother,  John  N.  Chenault,  of  moderate  size,  and  a 
son  of  the  latter,  only  15  years  of  age,  but  weighing  230  pounds, 
were  arrested  and  taken  to  an  adjacent  wood,  where  the  money 
abstracted  from  the  train,  or  a  portion  of  it,  was  supposed  to  be 
concealed.  Failing  to  produce  the  money  upon  the  order  of 
General  Wild,  these  three  citizens,  who  enjoy  the  esteem  and 
confidence  of  all  who  knew  them,  were  suspended  by  their  thumbs, 
with  the  view  of  extorting  confessions  as  to  the  place  of  its  con 
cealment.  Mr.  John  N.  Chenault  was  twice  subjected  to  this 
torture,  and  on  one  occasion  until  he  fainted,  and  was  then  cut 
down.  Rev.  A.  D.  Chenault  was  also  hung  up  twice  by  his 
thumbs,  and  until  Gen.  Wild  was  induced  only  by  his  groans 
and  cries  to  release  him  from  his  agony.  The  youth,  A.  F.  Che 
nault,  was  hung  up  once,  and  until  lie  exhibited  evident  signs  of 
fainting,  when  he  was  cut  down.  Whilst  this  scene  was  being 
enacted,  Gen.  Wild  and  his  subaltern  were  both  present,  direct 
ing  the  whole  operations.  These  citizens,  with  the  exception  of 
John  N.  Chenault,  who  was  unable  to  be  removed,  were  then 
sent  under  guard  to  Washington,  fifteen  miles  distant. 

By  order  of  Gen.  Wild,  a  daughter  of  John  N.  Chenault, 
about  the  age  of  seventeen  years,  universally  beloved  in  her 
neighborhood,  and  distinguished  for  her  piety,  was  searched,  by 
being  stripped,  in  the  presence  of  the  Lieutenant,  who  was 
charged  with  the  execution  of  the  order.  When  her  gar 
ments,  piece  by  piece,  were  taken  from  her  and  the  very  last  one 
upon  her  was  reached,  in  the  instincts  of  her  native  modesty,  she 
threw  herself  upon  a  bed  and  sought  to  conceal  her  person  with 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  129 

its  covering,  she  was  ordered  to  stand  out  upon  the  floor  until 
stripped  to  perfect  nakedness. 

By  order  of  Gen.  Wild,  the  wife  of  John  N.  Chenault  was 
arrested  and  taken  under  guard  to  Washington,  where  she  was 
incarcerated  for  several  days,  fed  on  bread  and  water,  in  one  of 
the  petit  jury  rooms  of  the  court  house,  and  after  she  had  been 
forced  to  leave  at  her  home  her  nursing  infant,  but  nine  months 
old,  where  it  continued  to  remain  until  its  mother  was  released. 

During  the  period  of  her  imprisonment,  Gen.  Wild  was  waited 
upon  at  his  hotel  by  three  citizens  of  the  county,  to  wit :  Francis 
G.  Wingfield,  Richard  T.  Walton,  and  your  correspondent,  who 
importuned  this  officer  to  permit  one  of  the  party  to  take  Mrs. 
Chenault  to  his  residence  in  the  village,  each  pledging  his  neck, 
and  all  tendering  bond,  with  security,  in  any  amount  which  he 
would  be  pleased  to  nominate,  for  her  appearance  at  any  time 
and  place  in  obedience  to  his  order.  This  request  Gen.  Wild 
promptly  and  emphatically  refused,  but  graciously  allowed  her 
friends  to  supply  her  with  suitable  food  at  the  place  of  her  con 
finement. 

The  tortures  and  indignities  thus  inflicted  upon  this  family, 
who  are  respected  and  esteemed  by  all  who  knew  them,  failed  to 
discover  any  evidence  whatever  of  their  complicity  in  the  rob 
bery,  or  any  knowledge  of  the  concealment  of  any  of  its  fruits. 

The  facts  thus  detailed  were  reported  in  substance  to  Major 
General  James  B.  Steadman,  then  on  duty  at  Augusta,  Ga.,  who 
immediately  ordered  his  Inspector  General  (whose  name  is  not 
remembered)  to  Washington,  with  instructions  to  collect  the  evi 
dence  as  to  the  truth  of  the  representations  made  to  him.  After 
spending  several  days  at  Washington  and  its  vicinity,  in  the  ex 
amination  of  witnesses,  this  officer  observed  that  the  facts  which 
he  had  elicited  fully  corroborated  the  statements  which  had  been 
forwarded  to  Gen.  Steadman. 

Gen.  Wild  was  removed  by  the  order  of  Gen.  Steadman,  and 
ordered  to  Washington  City.  Charges  were  also  preferred  against 
him,  but  the  public  is  not  advised  that  even  as  much  as  a  reprimand 
was  ever  administered  to  him. 

The  foregoing  statement  of  facts  will  be  avouched  by  many 
citizens  of  Washington,  and  of  Wilkes  and  Lincoln  counties. 
You  are  respectfully  referred  to  James  M.  Dyson,  Gabriel 
Toombs,  Green  P.  Cozarfc,  Hon.  Garnett  Andrews,  Dr.  J.  J. 
Kobertson,  Dr.  James  H.  Lane,  Dr.  J.  B.  Ficklin,  Eichard  T. 
Walton,  Dr.  John  Haynes  Walton,  and  David  G.  Cotting,  the 
present  editor  of  the  Republican,  at  Augusta. 

Prompted  by  no  spirit  of  personal  malevolence,  but  in  obedience 
9 


130  CEIMES   OP   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

alone  to  the  instinct  of  a  virtuous  patriotism,  I  have  thus  "a1 
round  unvarnished  tale  delivered  "  of  some  of  the  actings  and 
doings  of  this  officer,  studiously  refraining  from  any  denunciation, 
and  suppressing  every  suggestion  the  least  calculated  to  excite 
the  prejudices  or  inflame  the  passions  of  the  public. 

I  am,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

JOHN  B.  WEEMS. 

An  attempt  to  record  the  crimes  committed  during  the  civil 
war  would  fill  volumes  and  excite  horror. 

We  can  only  indicate  the  crimes  rather  than  give  detail  of 
their  circumstances. 

One  gentleman  from  Vicksburg,  writes  in  justly  indignant 
language  of  the  rape  and  robbery  of  his  wife  ;  that  he  has  sought 
redress  in  vain  of  the  military  authorities.  Another  of  the  vio 
lation  of  two  ladies  by  beastly  mercenaries,  until  one  dies,  and 
the  other  lives  a  raving  maniac. 

A  lady  writes  from  Liberty,  Missouri,  that  her  father,  Mr. 
Payne,  a  minister  of  Christ,  was  murdered  by  the  military  and 
left  out  from  his  dwelling  for  several  days,  until  found  by  some 
neighbors  in  a  mutilated  condition. 

A  gentleman  writes  that  a  wretch  named  Harding  boasts  that 
he  had  beaten  out  the  brains  of  a  wounded  Confederate  prisoner 
at  the  battle  of  Drainesville. 

The  affidavit  of  Thomas  E.  Gilkerson  states  that  negro  soldiers 
were  promoted  to  corporals  for  shooting  white  prisoners  at  Point 
Lookout,  where  he  was  a  prisoner. 

That  he  was  transferred  to  Elmira,  ISTew  York,  where  pris 
oners  were  starved  into  skeletons ;  were  reduced  to  the  necessity 
of  robbing  the  night-stool  of  the  meats  which,  being  spoiled, 
could  not  be  eaten  by  the  sick,  was  thrown  into  the  bucket  of 
excrements,  taken  out  and  washed  to  satisfy  their  distressing 
hunger. 

That  for  inquiring  of  Lieutenant  Whitney,  of  Koch  ester,  New 
York,  for  some  clothes  which  the  deponent  believed  were  sent 
to  him  in  a  box,  the  deponent  was  confined  three  days  in  a  dun 
geon  and  fed  on  bread  and  water. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK.  131 

That  two  men  in  ward  twenty-two  were  starved  until  they  eat 
a  dog,  for  which  offence  they  were  severely  punished. 

That  negroes  were  placed  on  guard.  That  while  on  guard,  a 
negro  called  a  prisoner  over  the  dead  line,  which  the  prisoner 
did  not  recognize  as  such,  and  the  negro  shot  him  dead,  and 
went  unpunished. 

That  shooting  prisoners  without  cause  or  provocation,  was  of 
frequent  occurrence  by  the  negro  guards. 

This  affidavit  was  taken  before  Dan'l  Jackson,  Justice  of  the 
Peace. 

Joseph  Hetterphran,  from  Fayetteville,  Georgia,  writes  that 
he  was  captured  on  the  27th  of  January,  1864,  in  East  Tennes 
see;  searched  and  robbed  with  his  companions  of  everything. 
They  were  hurried  by  forced  marches  to  Knoxville,  nearly  frozen 
and  starved ;  were  then  confined  in  the  penitentiary,  where  the 
treatment  all  the  time  grew  worse ;  were  finally  taken  to  Rock 
Island,  where  he  had  no  blanket,  was  stinted  in  fuel,  food  and 
raiment.  In  this  horrible  place  the  prisoners  ate  dogs  and  rats. 
The  poor  fellows  tried  to  get  the  crumbs  that  fell  from  the  bread 
wagons ;  a  great  many  died  of  diseases  induced  by  starvation : 
others  starved  outright.  In  the  meantime  the  sutler  would  sell 
provisions  to  the  rich  Confederates,  whilst  the  poor  were  driven 
to  starvation.  This  prison  was  guarded  by  negroes  for  a  consid 
erable  time.  The  negroes  frequently  shot  the  prisoners  down 
through  wantonness,  just  as  they  did  at  Elmira.  The  officer 
who  led  negroes  to  kill  the  people  of  his  own  race,  can  sink  to 
no  lower  depth  of  degradation. 

Henry  J.  Moses  writes  from  Woodbine,  Texas,  that  he  was 
taken  prisoner  at  Games'  Farm,  near  Richmond,  Virginia,  and 
confined  at  Point  Lookout  during  the  month  of  May,  1864,  and 
then  taken  to  Fort  Delaware,  where  he  remained  until  the  24th 
of  August.  When  Gen.  Foster  demanded  the  removal  of  six 
hundred  of  the  prisoners,  they  were  placed  on  board  the  steamer 
Crescent,  and  kept  in  the  hold  seventeen  days,  suffocating  with 
heat,  drinking  bilge  water,  and  eating  salt  pork  and  crackers  in 
very  stinted  allowances.  The  hatchway  was  frequently  closed, 
and  all  of  the  horrors  of  the  African  slave  trade  revived  in  their 
persons  and  treatment.  After  enduring  this  terrible  form  of 


132  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

torture,  they  were  placed  on  Morris  Island,  under  the  fire  of 
their  own  guns  for  forty-three  days,  guarded  by  negroes.  The 
dead-line  rope  was  stretched  as  a  pretext  for  shooting  those  who 
should  even  by  accident  touch  it.  Taunts,  gibes,  jeers,  and  in 
sults  of  every  kind  were  heaped  upon  the  prisoners.  Paul  H. 
Earle,  of  Alabama,  for  no  offence  whatever,  was  shot  at ;  another 
time  the  tent  was  fired  into,  and  two  sleeping  soldiers  badly 
wounded,  by  order  of  the  Lieutenant.  As  it  always  has  been 
and  ever  will  be,  the  negroes  behaved  much  better  than  the  whito 
fiends  who  commanded  them.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  A 
man  raised  in  Christian  communities  who  would  let  loose  bar 
barians  to  burn  up  and  destroy  the  habitations  of  women  and 
children  of  his  own  race,  has  not  one  conceiveable  iota  of  space 
in  which  to  sink  deeper  in  degradation. 

After  all  of  the  acts  of  cruelty  and  ingenuity  to  starve  these 
poor  fellows,  they  were  finally  confined  in  Fort  Pulaski,  fed 
upon  a  pint  of  musty  kiln-dried  corn,  with  a  rotten  pickle  each 
day.  On  this  diet  they  were  kept  for  forty-four  days,  when  the 
scurvy  broke  out  and  killed  over  two  hundred  of  the  number. 
After  such  loathesome  suffering  as  makes  human  nature  shudder, 
incarcerated  in  damp  cells  without  blankets,  some  with  no  coats, 
Mr.  Moses  adds  that  "  nothing  but  the  preserving  hand  of  God 
kept  us  through  those  trying  hours."  How  much  greater  was 
the  crime  of  a  Christian  people,  that  the  ministry  in  the  peace 
ful  regions  were  inflaming,  this  horrible  work  instead  of  allevia 
ting  the  sufferings  of  the  people.  Added  to  all  of  the  other 
atrocious  crimes  arid  cruelties,  the  insane  were  in  like  manner 
tortured.  An  old  gentleman  named  Fitzgerald,  infirm  and  in 
sane,  who  ate  opium  to  alleviate  his  pain,  was  denied  his  medi 
cine  for  which  he  begged,  until  death  kindly  came  to  open  the 
prison  doors  and  release  him  from  his  agony.  The  prisoners  say 
that  Foster  instigated  these  cruelties.  The  names  and  references 
of  the  parties  clothe  the  whole  statement  with  an  unmistakeable 
semblance  of  truth.  The  corroboration  is  conclusive. 

John  L.  Waring,  of  Brandywine,  Prince  George's  county, 
Maryland,  states  that  he  was  a  prisoner  of  war  for  more  than 
two  years :  that  a  private  soldier  killed  in  his  presence  an  inof 
fensive  prisoner  in  Carroll  prison,  who  sat  by  the  window,  and 
was  promoted  from  the  ranks,  to  corporal,  for  the  crime. 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  133 

Forney's  Chronicle,  in  noticing  the  death,  and  apologizing  for 
the  crime,  falsely  stated  that  young  Hardcastle,  the  prisoner 
killed,  was  cursing  the  guard. 

The  room-mate  of  Hardcastle,  who,  like  Hardcastle,  had  been 
arrested  upon  no  charges  whatever,  soon  after  this  murder  was 
released,  but  died  shortly  after  in  consequence  of  the  cruel  prison 
treatment. 

Mr.  Waring  was  removed  from  Carroll  prison  to  Point  Look 
out,  where  the  prisoners  were  detailed  to  load  and  unload  vessels; 
were  robbed  by  negroes  of  the  trinkets  made  in  prison ;  some 
were  shot  by  negroes,  carpet  sacks  were  robbed  of  clothing,  and 
hospital  stewards  and  sanitary  commissions  ate  the  provisions 
sent  to  prisoners  and  soldiers,  or  extorted  exorbitant  prices  from 
the  person  to  whom  they  had  been  sent. 

The  negroes  offered  every  manner  of  indignity  to  the  prison 
ers.  Among  other  crimes  they  shot  a  dying  man  on  his  attempt  to 
relieve  nature.  The  conduct  of  the  negroes  at  Point  Lookout 
was  incited  by  their  white  officers  until  it  was  frightful. 

Henry  H.  Knight  writes  from  Gary,  Wake  county,  North 
Carolina,  that  he  was  captured  at  Gettysburg,  taken  to  Fort 
Delaware,  and  suffered  all  that  cold  and  mud  could  inflict  upon 
their  comfort  and  convenience.  He  was  driven  from  poorly 
warmed  stoves  by  Federal  officers.  The  soldiers  were  beaten, 
starved  and  frozen  to  death.  Seven  were  frozen  one  morning; 
others  of  them  went  to  the  hospital  and  died.  At  other  times 
they  were  driven  through  the  water,  and  were  alternately  robbed, 
frozen,  tortured  and  starved.  The  great  amount  sent  them  by 
relatives  was  appropriated  by  the  guards  for  their  own  use;  and 
if  they  made  complaint,  the  prisoners  were  shot,  and  the  improb 
able  story  told  that  they  had  run  guard,  and  that  would  be  the 
last  of  their  crime  heard  in  the  Fort  against  the  guards. 

Some  of  these  poor  fellows  were  whole  days  without  fire,  when 
the  snow  was  a  foot  deep,  or  the  water  covering  the  ground. 
The  author  saw  hundreds  of  these  prisoners  in  the  city  of  Pitts- 
burg  in  the  early  summer  of  1865,  on  their  way  to  the  South 
west,  in  the  most  loathesome  condition.  Their  pitiable  suffering 
and  mournful  stories  were  sickening,  and  would  crimson  the 
cheek  with  unutterable  shame  and  horror.  No  words  can  por- 


134  CRIMES   OF   THE    CIVIL    WAR. 

tray  the  picture  that  he  saw  with  his  own  eyes.  Swollen  gums, 
teeth  dropping  from  the  jaws,  eyes  bursting  with  scurvy,  limbs 
paralyzed,  hair  Jailing  off  of  the  heads,  frozen  hands  and  feet. 
These  were  those  that  escaped.  The  dead  concealed  the  crimes 
of  the  murderers  in  the  grave  which  was  closed  upon  them,  by 
hundreds. 

W.  C.  Osborn,  of  Opelika,  Alabama,  states  that  he  was  cap 
tured  on  the  4th  of  July,  1863,  and  confined  in  Fort  Delaware; 
that  the  rations  were  three  crackers  twice  a  day ;  most  of  the 
time  no  meat  at  all,  but  occasionally  a  very  small  piece  of  salt 
beef  or  pork.  That  he  drank  water  within  fifteen  feet  of  the 
excrement  of  the  Fort,  and  could  get  no  other.  When  cold 
weather  returned,  the  beds  of  each  man  were  searched,  and  only 
one  blanket  left  him.  The  barracks  were  inferior,  and  men. 
frozen  to  death  in  the  terrible  winter  of  1863—4.  Prisoners  were 
shot  for  the  most  trivial  offences.  One  man's  brains  were  blown 
out  and  scattered  on  the  walls,  where  they  remained  for  many 
days,  for  no  oflence  other  than  looking  over  the  bounds,  uncon 
sciously.  For  other  offences,  men  were  tied  up  by  the  thumbs 
just  so  that  their  toes  might  touch  the  ground,  for  three  hours 
at  a  time,  until  they  would  turn  black  in  the  face.  Others  were 
placed  astride  of  joists,  and  forced  to  remain  in  that  attitude  for 
hours  at  a  time,  the  coldest  weather.  These  crimes  against  the 
persons  of  the  prisoners,  and  their  starvation,  were  carefully 
concealed  from  the  public  eye,  and  the  Philadelphia  papers 
made  every  effort  to  deceive  the  public  in  regard  to  these  mat 
ters.  On  inspection  days,  when  the  people  were  admitted  to 
the  grounds,  the  prisoners  got  three  times  as  much  as  upon 
other  days.  This  was  done  to  delude  the  people  of  the  country, 
who  never  had  any  sympathy  with  these  horrible  crimes. 

Presley  N.  Morris,  of  Henry  county,  Georgia,  was  captured 
by  Wildcr's  brigade,  was  divested  of  everything,  marched  five 
clays  on  one  meal  each  day,  carried  through  filthy  cars  to  Camp 
Morton,  Indiana,  on  the  19th  of  October,  1863,  where  he  was 
imprisoned  in  an  old  horse  stable  on  the  Fair  ground,  without 
blanket,  thinly  clad,  and  without  fire,  until  January,  1864,  when 
he  received  one  blanket ;  his  body  covered  with  rags  and  ver 
min,  when  the  snow  was  from  six;  to  ten  inches  deep.  Two 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK.  135 

stoves  were  all  that  was  used  to  .warm  three  hundred  men,  and 
then  wood  for  half  the  time  only  was  allowed.  The  prisoners 
were  compelled  to  remain  out  in  the  cold  in  this  condition  from 
nine  o'clock,  A.  M.,  to  four  o'clock,  P.  M.,  no  difference  what 
was  the  condition  of  the  weather.  In  October,  1864,  the  prison 
ers  were  drawn  up  in  line,  stripped  of  all  their  bedding,  except 
one  blanket,  and  robbed  of  all  money ;  and  Mr.  Morris  was 
robbed  of  three  hundred  dollars,  with  other  valuables,  none  of 
which  were  ever  returned ;  was  beaten  over  the  head  because  a 
piece  of  money  was  found  near  his  feet,  by  one  Fifer.  Money 
sent  him  was  purloined  by  the  officers  through  whose  hands  it 
came. 

Another  says  be  belonged  to  Grigsby's  regiment ;  was  sent  to 
Camp  Morton  ;  and  corroborates  the  statement  of  Mr.  Morris  in 
regard  to  Camp  Morton.  He  was  soon,  after  his  capture,  sent  to 
Camp  Douglas  near  Chicago.  In  this  place  the  prisoners  were 
shot  at  by  sharpshooters  and  Indians ;  sometimes  were  kept  in 
close  confinement  for  forty-eight  hours.  Sometimes  a  half-dozen 
prisoners  were  placed  upon  a  rude  machine  called  "  Morgan's 
horse,"  which  was  very  sharp,  and  compelled  to  sit  more  than 
two  hours  at  a  time,  with  weights  to  their  legs.  Others  were 
tied  up  by  their  thumbs.  They  were  searched  once  every  week. 
The  prisoners  were  whipped  with  leather  straps  and  sticks,  after 
the  manner  of  whipping  brutes.  Upon  one  occasion,  when  a 
guard  discovered  a  beef-bone  thrown  from  the  window  of  num 
ber  six,  he  made  all  of  the  prisoners  form  in  line  and  touch  the 
ground  with  the  fore  finger  without  bending  the  knee.  All 
who  could  not  do  this  were  beaten.  A  young  man  was  shot  for 
picking  up  snow  to  quench  his  thirst,  when  the  hydrant  had 
been  closed  for  several  days.  New  and  cruel  punishments  were 
inflicted,  as  whim,  passion,  or  pure  malignity  indicated. 

Win.  Howard,  a  Baptist  minister,  sixty  years  of  age,  of 
Graves  county,  Kentucky,  was  taken,  with  his  daughters,  and 
beaten  over  the  head  with  a  sabre,  until  the  sabre  was  broken ; 
and  he  was  otherwise  cruelly  treated. 

Lucius  T.  Harding  writes  that  on  the  14th  of  October,  the 
large  steamer  General  Foster  came  to  his  place.  The  sailors 
entered  the  house,  kicked  his  sick  children,  and  robbed  him  of 


136  CEIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR 

everything.  That  white  officers  led  negro  raids  into  Westmore 
land  and  Richmond  counties.  Women  were  violated  wherever 
they  were  caught  by  the  negroes,  with  the  utmost  impunity. 

N.  D.  Hall,  of  Larkinville,  Alabama,  a  soldier  of  Western 
Virginia,  during  Hunter's,  Crook's  and  Averill's  horrible  desola 
tion  of  Virginia,  says  that  the  rebels  found  a  negro  man  and 
child,  both  dead,  and  a  negro  woman  stripped  naked,  whose 
bleeding  person  had  been  outraged  by  Averill's  men. 

That  AverilFs  men  offered  to  give  to  Dr.  Patton's  wife,  in 
Greenbrier  county,  West  Virginia,  fifteen  negro  children  which 
they  had  stolen,  and  which  she  refused  to  take  from  them.  To 
rid  themselves  of  the  burden,  and  the  children  from  suffering, 
they  were  thrown  into  Greenbrier  river. 

In  the  valley  below  Staunton,  Crook's  men  tied  an  old  gen 
tleman,  and  violated  his  only  daughter  in  his  presence,  until  she 
fainted. 

In  Bedford  county  he  saw  the  corpse  of  one,  and  the  other 
sister  a  raving  maniac,  from  violation  of  their  persons.  Desola 
tion  was  left  in  the  trail  of  these  men. 

An  aged  and  respectable  minister  was  hanged  in  Middletown, 
Va.,  by  military  order,  for  shooting  a  soldier  in  the  attempt  to 
violate  his  daughter  in  his  own  house  in  Greenbrier  county. 

David  Nelson,  of  Jackson,  was  shot  because  his  son  was  in 
the  Confederate  army. 

Another  person  named  Peters,  a  mere  boy,  was  shot  for  hav 
ing  a  pistol  hidden. 

Garland  A.  Snead,  of  Augusta,  Ga.,  said  he  was  taken  prison 
er  at  Fisher's  Hill,  Va.,  September,  1864;  sent  to  Point  Look 
out,  which  was  in  the  care  of  one  Brady,  who  had  been  an  offi 
cer  of  negro  cavalry. 

He  was  starved  for  five  days,  had  chronic  diarrhoea;  was 
forced  to  use  bad  water,  the  good  water  being  refused  them. 
Men  died  frequently  of  sheer  neglect.  He  was  sent  off  to  make 
room  for  other  prisoners,  because  he  was  believed  to  be  in  a  dy 
ing  condition ;  as  it  was  manifestly  the  purpose  to  poison  all  that 
could  be  destroyed  by  deleterious  food  and  water,  or  by  neglect 
of  their  wants. 

He  said  that  negroes  fired  into  their  beds  at  night;  and  one 
was  promoted  for  killing  a  prisoner,  from  the  ranks  to  sergeant. 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  137 

Claiborne  Sneed,  of  Augusta,  Ga.,  writes  from  Johnson's  Isl 
and  :  that  prisoners  were  frequently  shot  without  an  excuse ; 
that  prisoners  having  the  small  pox,  were  brought  to  Johnson's 
Island  on  purpose  to  inoculate  the  rest  of  the  prisoners,  and  that 
many  died  of  that  disease ;  a  crime  for  which  civilized  govern 
ment  visits  the  most  terrible  penalties.  Yet  this  disease,  thus 
planted,  was  kept  there  until  it  had  spent  its  force. 

That  the  rations  were  bad,  and  prisoners  went  to  bed  suffering 
the  pangs  of  hunger. 

That  although  Lake  Erie  was  not  one  hundred  yards  distant, 
yet  these  prisoners  were  forced  to  drink  from  three  holes  dug  in 
the  prison  bounds,  surrounded  by  twenty-six  sinks,  the  filth  of 
which  oozed  into  the  water.  This  treatment,  in  no  wise  better 
than  the  inoculation  of  small  pox,  and  even  more  loathsome  than 
that  disease,  caused  many  prisoners  to  contract  chronic  diarrhoea 
in  a  country  where  that  disease  is  not  common. 

It  is  impossible  for  human  language  to  portray  the  horrible  crim 
inality  of  the  wicked  men  who  inflicted  these  tortures  upon  hu 
man  beings,  and  at  the  same  time  caused  the  detention  of  North 
ern  prisoners  in  loathesome  Southern  prisons,  through  a  fiendish 
love  of  suffering ;  and  the  unwillingness  to  have  exchanges,  paroles^ 
and  releases  granted  to  the  unfortunate,  innocent  men  of  both 
armies,  unnaturally  led  to  mutual  destruction  ?  What  apology 
can  the  infidel  ministry  of  the  country  offer  for  such  crimes  ? 
and  upon  their  head  must  the  curse  ever  rest  who  sustained  these 
thieves. 

J.  C.  Moore,  son  of  Col.  David  Moore,  of  the  Federal  army, 
writes  that  he  was  taken  prisoner  at  Helena,  Arkansas,  July  4, 
1863,  with  1750  prisoners.  The  poor  fellows,  half  starved,  were 
met  at  St.  Louis  by  a  supply  of  apples,  cakes,  tobacco  and 
money.  The  officer  having  them  in  charge  threatened  the  boys 
with  imprisonment,  who  extended  these  friendships  to  these  un 
fortunate  men.  That  he  was  taken  to  the  Alton  prison,  where 
men  were  kept  with  ball  and  chain  at  work  in  the  street,  for 
mere  peccadilloes,  where  the  keepers  shot  their  victims  and  stab 
bed  them,  with  all  of  the  indignities  usual  in  the  prisons  every 
where,  which  seemed  under  control  of  no  military,  but  rather 
governed  by  the  instigation  of  the  devil. 


138  CEIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL    WAK. 

L.  P.  Hall  and  Win.  Perry,  of  Chico  Butte,  California,  were 
arrested  ;  had  their  press  destroyed  ;  were  handcuffed  together  in 
Jackson,  Amada  county,  with  ball  and  chain  attached  to  their 
legs,  and  driven  to  labor  on  the  Public  Works  at  Alcatross. 
Fifty-two  others  were  treated  in  like  manner.  Hall  and  Perry 
were  finally  discharged  without  charges  or  trial.  In  the  persons 
of  these  gentlemen,  were  violated  all  the  rights  of  freedom  of 
person,  of  the  press,  of  speech,  and  finally  they  were  starved, 
and  released  after  enduring  the  most  offensive  insults  at  the 
hands  of  a  cowardly  enemy.  This  crime  transpired  in  Califor 
nia,  where  war  had  not  gone,  and  their  imprisonment  was  with 
out  pretence. 

T.  Walton  Mason,  of  Adairville,  Logan  Co.,  Ivy.,  says  that 
he  was  surrendered  by  Gen.  Jno.  Morgan  in  Ohio,  July  26th, 
1863,  and  imprisoned  at  Camp  Chase,  then  removed  to  Camp 
Douglas,  where  all  of  the  horrors  of  that  place  were  revived. 
In  this  camp  Choctaw  Indians  were  employed  as  guards.  When 
money  was  given  to  the  guards  to  buy  provisions,  th.3  white  guards 
wouldpooket  tho  money.  Tiis  In  liana  s!iam3l  tlia  whites  for  this 
breach  of  faith  and  petty  theft.  In  November,  1863,  seven 
escaped  prisoners  were  returned,  and  subjected  to  the  most  cruel 
torture.  They  were  taken  out  in  the  presence  of  the  garrison 
and  tortured  with  the  thumb-screw  until  they  fainted  with  pain. 

In  February,  1864,  the  cruelty  became  extreme;  they  beat  pris 
oners  with  clubs  and  a  leather  belt,  with  a  U.  S.  buckle  at  the  end 
of  it.  They  shot  prisoners  without  provocation.  For  spilling  the 
least  water  on  the  floor,  the  prisoner  was  elevated  on  a  four  inch 
scantling  fifteen  feet  high,  and  tortured  for  two  or  three  hours. 
For  any  similar  offence,  when  the  perpetrator  was  not  known, 
the  whole  regiment  was  marched  out  and  kept  in  the  cold  all 
day,  sometimes  freezing  their  limbs  in  the  effort.  Because  a  sick 
man  vomited  on  his  floor,  the  whole  of  the  prisoners,  in  the  dead 
hour  of  a  chilling  cold  night,  were  made  to  stand  out  in  their 
night  clothes,  until  frozen,  and  from  which  several  died,  whilst 
others  lost  their  health,  which  they  never  recovered. 

Mr.  Mason  was  driven  by  this  night's  cruelty  into  the  hospi 
tal,  where,  among  empyrics,  he  refused  to  take  their  medicines; 
in  turn  his  own  physician  was  not  allowed  to  see  him. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR.  139 

From  twelve  to  thirty  prisoners  died  every  day,  during  the 
months  of  July,  August,  September  and  October,  from  brutal 
treatment. 

When  James  Wandle,  a  Virginia  giant  near  seven  feet  high, 
died,  through  neglect  in  the  hospital,  the  ward-master  could 
not  lay  him  in  the  small  coffin  which  was  furnished,  but  his 
body  in  a  most  brutal  manner  was  stamped  down  into  its  nar 
row  limits  to  prepare  it  for  the  grave. 

Such  were  the  every  day  affairs  of  this  loathesome  place. 

Again,  in  the  coldest  winter  night,  the  prisoners  were  aroused 
and  driven  out  in  the  storm  barefooted,  in  their  nig] it  clothes, 
and  made  to  sit  down  until  the  snow  melted  under  them. 

Late  in  December,  several  hundred  prisoners  came  from  Hood's 
army,  near  Nashville,  almost  destitute  of  clothing ;  coming  from 
a  warm  climate,  they  were  kept  out  all  night  in  the  cold,  shiver 
ing  and  freezing.  Upon  the  next  morning,  nearly  one  hundred  were 
sent  to  the  hospital.  As  a  consequence,  many  of  their  limbs 
were  frozen  and  required  amputation,  and  death  kindly  came 
to  the  relief  of  all. 

J.  Risque  Hutter,  late  Lieutenant-Colonel  llth  Regiment 
Virginia  Infantry,  writes  that  he  was  captured  at  Gettysburg, 
and  was  eighteen  months  in  prison  on  Johnson's  Island. 

During  the  tyranny  of  a  fellow  of  the  name  of  Hill,  rations 
were  reduced  and  stinted ;  that  prisoners  were  neglected  in  sick 
ness  ;  straw  and  other  necessaries  were  declared  contraband. 

That  suffering  from  thirst  was  common,  right  on  "  the  shores 
of  the  lake-bound  prison." 

That  the  rations  were  indifferent  in  quality  and  insufficient  in 
quantity  to  satisfy  hunger.  Rats  were  eaten  by  hundreds  of 
prisoners,  who  regarded  themselves  fortunate  to  get  them,  such 
was  the  reduced  condition  of  the  prisoners. 

That  Colonel  Hutter's  brother,  an  officer  in  the  Confederate 
army,  on  duty  in  Danville,  Virginia,  went  to  Lieutenant  Bing- 
ham  and  agreed  to  furnish  them  with  all  of  the  comforts  of  life, 
if  he  would  have  the  necessaries  furnished  Colonel  Hutter 
through  his  friends  at  home.  Colonel  Hutter  had  Lieutenant 
Bingham  furnished  with  everything  he  desired,  and  when  ar 
rangements  were  made  to  furnish  similar  articles  to  Colonel 


140  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

Hutter,  in  Johnson's  Island,  Hill  would  not  permit  it.  When 
the  matter  was  referred  to  Washington,  the  refusal  was  sustained. 

The  above  abbreviated  statement  has  been  made  from  ably 
written  details  of  individual  wrongs  —  each  gentleman  giving 
name,  date,  place  and  specific  charges.  The  latter  would  make 
a  large  bound  volume  of  itself,  which  a  want  of  space  only 
apologizes  for  the  abridgment. 

John  M.  Weiner  was  formerly  Mayor  of  the  City  of  St.  Louis, 
was  arrested  in  that  city  and  kept  in  prison  without  any  charges 
against  him  whatever.  After  the  cruel  treatment  common  to 
St.  Louis  prisons,  he  was  transferred  to  Alton  penitentiary,  and 
from  there  made  his  escape,  and  was  killed  near  Springfield, 
Missouri. 

Mrs.  Weiner  sent  for  her  husband's  body  for  burial  in  Bella- 
fontaine  Cemetery.  Whilst  his  wife  and  friends  were  preparing 
his  body  for  burial  Samuel  K.  Curtis  sent  a  squad  of  soldiers 
who  stole  the  corpse  from  his  wife,  and  buried  it  in  a  secret 
place. 

Mrs.  Beatty  was  arrested  for  begging  the  release  of  Major 
Wolf,  who  was  sentenced  to  be  shot  in  retaliation.  Wolf  was 
respited  and  then  exchanged;  but  Mrs.  Beatty  was  put  in 
prison,  manacled,  shackled,  and  chained  with  a  heavy  ball  until 
the  iron  cut  through  her  tender  limbs,  and  the  flesh  rotted  be 
neath  the  irons, until  she  was  attacked  with  chills;  and  in  a  lone 
cell,  not  permitted  to  see  a  human  being,  when  her  mind  gave  way 
under  the  terrible  treatment.  The  surgeon  protested  against 
this  vicious  cruelty ;  still  it  was  continued,  until  the  very  sight 
of  the  poor  creature  was  frightful.  So  she  continued  until 
Rosecrans  was  removed.  After  Rosecrans  was  broken  down 
in  the  army,  like  Burnside,  he  tried  to  retrieve  his  lost  fortunes 
by  cruelty,  but  failed.  Neither  the  release  of  Strachaii  from  the 
penalties  of  the  court  martial  for  his  participation  in  the  McNeil 
murders,  and  robbery  and  rape  of  Mrs.  Mary  Humphries ;  nor 
his  barbarity  could  save  him  from  the  contempt  of  the  radicals. 
After  his  brutalities  in  these  cases,  the  Democrats  loathed  him, 
and  he  now  lies  hidden  among  the  rubbish  of  the  war,  'mid  the 
remnants  of  abandoned  barracks,  rusty  guns  and  broken  wagons, 
to  be  heard  of  no  more  forever.  Mrs.  Beatty  was  tried  by  court 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  141 

martial  and  acquitted,  but  will  wear  the  marks  of  cruelty  to 
the  grave. 

One  of  the  most  horrible  murders  of  the  State  of  Missouri, 
was  that  committed  by  an  old  counterfeiter  named  Babcock,  who 
shot  Judge  Wright  and  his  three  sons,  after  decoying  them  from 
their  own  door.  The  details  are  too  horrible  for  human  pen. 

This  wretched  criminal,  Babcock,  was  elected  to  the  Legis 
lature  by  disfranchising  the  people  of  his  county  by  military 
force. 

This  murderer  is  a  minister  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
and  dispenses  the  Gospel  to  the  people. 

Through  disgust,  horror  and  shame,  I  cast  my  pen  aside,  and 
sit  in  amazement,  that  for  crimes  like  these  an  angry  God  has 
not  by  His  breath,  cursed  the  earth,  and  sent  it  as  a  floating  pan 
demonium  throughout  the  immensity  of  space,  as  a  warning  to 
other  worlds,  if  other  worlds  there  be  so  depraved,  corrupted 
and  lost  to  the  charities  of  life  and  the  mercies  of  God. 

Dr.  Gideon  S.  Bailey  in  wealth  and  character,  is  one  of  the 
first  citizens  of  the  State  of  Iowa.  He  had  attended  Abraham 
Lincoln's  reputed  father  in  his  last  illness  for  many  months,  and 
had  received  not  one  cent  in  compensation.  Yet  Dr.  Bailey  was 
arrested,  placed  in  the  very  same  filthy  place  in  which  the  author 
was  imprisoned,  and  kept  there  for  a  number  of  days. 

The  weather  was  exceedingly  sultry ;  Dr.  Bailey  was  in  very 
feeble  health,  when  he  was  carried  down  to  Saint  Louis  on  the 
hurricane  deck  of  a  steamer.  When  in  St.  Louis,  he  was  placed 
in  Gratiot  street  prison,  where  he  was  subjected  to  every  manner 
of  filth,  torture  and  suffering. 

The  debt  due  him  for  the  attendance  upon  Mr.  Lincoln,  re 
mains  unpaid ;  though  the  doctor  will  bear  the  effects  of  his  in 
carceration  to  the  grave. 


142  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 


CHAPTER   XIY. 

OVERTHROW  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

THE  evil  which  the  war  assumed  to  arrest,  was  a  part  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  country,  not  to  be  reached  by  war,  because 
the  Constitution  prescribed  the  laws  of  war,  and  could  not  be 
supposed  to  make  war  upon  itself. 

It  was  a  war  of  States,  with  all  of  its  attendant  evils  in  which 
the  government  was  guilty  of  usurpation.  If  it  be  granted  that 
a  government  of  written  law,  deriving  its  authority  from  the 
consent  of  the  people  and  embodying  its  powers  in  a  specific 
constitution,  may  be  destroyed  by  an  army  raised  by  itself  for  its 
own  protection  under  a  vague  war  power,  then  constitutional 
government  contains  the  elements  of  inevitable  self-destruction 
and  is  of  no  value  whatever. 

If  it  be  conceded  that  such  an  anomaly  as  a  war  power  may 
exist,  independent  of  written  constitutions,  then  we  have  no  gov 
ernment,  but  are  simply  ruled  by  arbitrary  power.  We  may  as 
justly  repeat  this  to  correct  a  political  wrong  and  triplicate  it  to 
cure  a  moral  evil.  But  if  we  are  to  follow  out  the  analogy,  we 
must  allow  a  few  over-heated  zealots  to  judge  of  the  time,  place 
and  occasion  of  war.  If  tin's  be  granted,  the  country  will  be  in 
volved  in  perpetual  war,  and  the  habitations  of  enlightened  na 
tions  desolated  under  the  empty  pretence  of  reform,  until  there 
would  not  be  a  painting,  poem,  or  printed  leaf  spared  by  the  in 
vader's  hoof  and  torch  to  mark  the  faintest  outlines  of  civiliza 
tion.  For  if  this  shallow  subterfuge  be  allowed,  everything  is 
surrendered. 

To  create  wars  upon  moral  pretence  is  to  overturn  the  moral 
law,  the  source  and  the  foundation  of  all  laws,  and  Christianity, 
the  standard  by  which  every  good  must  be  measured.  When 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  143 

the  supreme  law  of  the  universe  is  made  and  unmade  to  gratify 
the  whims  and  passions  of  the  wicked,  then  we  have  nothing 
left  on  earth  to  preserve  its  peace. 

Each  war  lays  the  foundation  of  other  and  more  malignant 
quarrels  out  of  which  other  wars  grow,  until  the  people  will 
estimate  the  attributes  of  manhood  by  the  tenacity  of  the  bull 
dog,  the  ferocity  of  the  tiger,  and  the  hyena's  thirst  for  blood. 

Each  war  brings  with  it  an  increasing  corresponding  waste  in 
positive  and  relative  expenses,  with  an  increasing  recklessness  of 
the  powers  that  hold  the  purse  and  command  the  sword  in 
exact  inverse  ratio,  as  the  government  is  unable  to  carry  on  the 
war  with  a  metallic  currency  or  paper  money  issued  upon  a  specie 
basis. 

If  the  principles  be  established  upon  which  the  late  war  was 
incited  and  prosecuted,  the  reconstruction  of  republican  govern 
ment  is  complete,  audit  must  not  be  overlooked  that  the  elements 
of  war  are  always  on  hand.  Political  and  military  leaders  stand 
waiting  with  arguments  for  precipitating  war.  Thousands  of 
fanatics  in  every  country,  would  gladly  crush  out  every  form  of 
religion  which  they  may  deem  offensive  to  their  convictions  of 
doctrine,  sacraments,  or  minor  forms. 

For  this  purpose  they  would  appeal  to  God  and  insist 
that  his  glory  was  involved  in  the  issue ;  that  the  nation's  honor 
was  imperilled  and  subjected  to  the  most  terrible  scourges  of 
heaven.  Each  of  these  bands  of  fanatics  would  involve  us  in 
war,  which,  commencing  to-morrow,  would  last  a  hundred  ages ; 
and  at  the  end  these  fiends  would  still  thirst  for  blood  and  hunt 
their  prey  like  famished  wolves  let  loose  upon  sheep  folds. 
These  wars,  which  are  each  as  legitimate  as  the  other,  would  in 
volve  the  people  to  such  a  train  of  insolvencies  as  bewilders  the 
powers  of  calculation.  These  curses  are  transmitted  without  a 
single  blessing,  mixed  or  unmixed,  with  all  of  their  attending 
evils  which  always  precede  and  inevitably  follow  revolutions  and 
civil  war. 

These  doctrines  have  involved  us  in  a  system  of  financial  crime, 
following  the  worst  precepts  of  the  worst  governments  of  the 
world  in  the  line  of  their  most  dangerous  precedents;  whilst  we 


144  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

are  copying  implicitly  the  most  odious  of  their  worst  administra 
tions.  There  has  been  none  more  pernicious  than  the  one  re 
vived  after  having  been  exploded  at  least  once  in  every  genera 
tion.  That  we  have  a  right  to  transmit  a  debt  to  posterity  for 
payment  of  wars  of  revenge  and  reforms  by  wars, 


CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  145 


CHAPTER  XV. 

DEGRADATION  OF  THE  JUDICIARY. 

THE  virtue  of  woman,  the  honor  of  soldiers,  and  the  piety  of 
the  pulpit,  are  not  more  essential  to  the  preservation  of  liberty 
than  is  the  purity  of  the  judiciary. 

Among  all  of  the  crimes,  misfortunes  and  blunders  of  the  last 
five  years,  there  has  been  nothing  so  deplorable  as  the  stains 
which  have  fallen  upon  the  ermine  of  the  American  judiciary. 

Our  early  history  was  marked  by  the  purity  and  power,  intel 
ligence  and  integrity  of  the  bench,  which  contributed  to  the 
highest  of  all  human  offices,  the  good  name  of  Marshal  Kent 
Story,  Rawle,  Tucker  and  Taney. 

Only  one  attempt  at  impeachment  occurred,  which  was  the 
earnest  effort  of  the  people  to  preserve  their  liberties  against  ju 
dicial  encroachment. 

For  the  most  trifling  peccadiloes,  judges  were  called  to  account; 
and  Judge  Addison,  otherwise  a  learned  jurist,  was  dismissed 
for  the  arbitrary  exercise  of  legitimate  powers. 

It  was  the  highest  purpose  of  our  political  system  to  preserve 
the  purity  of  the  judicial  robes  from  every  pollution. 

Our  early  judges  were  not  speculators,  peculators,  or  politi 
cians  ;  never  interfered  with  elections,  or  made  political  speeches. 
No  supreme  judge  was  ever  nominated  for  any  other  office. 

Although  the  bench  was  filled  with  our  oldest  statesmen,  the 
magistrate,  whose  duty  it  was  not  bear  the  sword  of  God  in  vain, 
retired  from  the  outer  world ;  and  closing  his  eyes  to  passion,  in 
terest  or  prejudice,  poised  the  even  balances,  and  closed  his  eyes, 
that  he  might  see  no  person  ;  closed  his  ears,  that  he  might  hear 
no  human  voice ;  forgot  his  friends  and  enemies,  kindred  and 
strangers ;  opened  his  mind  to  the  lucid  light  which  fell  from 
the  throne  of  justice,  and  determined  his  judgment. 
10 


146  CRIMES   OF    THE    CIVIL    WAR. 

Every  American  justice  felt  security  in  the  protection  of  the 
unstained  escutcheon  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

The  purity  of  the  judiciary,  with  the  confidence  of  the  people, 
extended  to  the  inferior  courts  of  the  State,  and  were  well  main 
tained  together. 

The  change  was  abrupt,  violent  and  startling  in  the  courts ;  as 
it  had  before  been  in  every  other  department.  The  men  of  char 
acter,  ability  and  learning,  had  all  disappeared  in  the  clouds  that 
hung  over  the  scenes  of  our  opening  civil  war,  and  were  lost  in 
the  long  continued  conflict. 

Taney  passed  away ;  Curtis  resigned ;  M'Lean  died,  and  Camp 
bell,  the  ablest  of  the  younger  members  of  the  court,  left  with 
the  State  of  Alabama,  in  the  secession  from  the  Union. 

The  old  Supreme  Court,  which,  in  stately  poverty,  independent 
of  Presidents  and  Congress,  foreign  courts,  and  funded  debts,  sat 
to  determine  the  difficulties  of  the  people. 

It  seemed  almost  a  dream  that  there  was  a  body  of  pure  men, 
unbought  by  money,  unmoved  by  passion,  unchanged  by  fear, 
who  determined  the  causes  of  the  people,  guarded  the  outposts 
of  liberty,  and  defended  the  Constitution. 

The  arm  that  closed  the  door  of  that  reverend  temple  of  jus 
tice  against  the  poor,  and  thrust  out  these  grave  arbiters,  com 
mitted  such  a  crime  as  may  scarcely  ever  find  repetition  among 
us.  It  were  impossible  to  name  the  imbecile,  wicked  men  who 
now  fill  these  places.  Many  volumes  might  enumerate,  but  not 
detail,  the  crimes  committed,  the  woes  inflicted,  the  robberies  ap 
proved,  and  the  sufferings  entailed  upon  the  country  by  the  wick 
edness,  negligence,  and  pusillanimity  of  the  judiciary  which  now 
offends  the  very  name  of  justice  in  every  part  of  the  country. 

The  exemplification  of  the  general  crime  and  profligacy  in  the 
judiciary,  its  insolence,  pretension,  incompetence  and  dishonesty, 
could  scarcely  be  more  perfect  than  is  afforded  in  the  arrest,  treat 
ment,  torture,  farce  and  false  pretence,  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  Davis,  late  President  of  the  Confederate  States. 

It  is,  however,  but  one  of  many  and  not  the  greatest  instances 
of  the  insecurity  of  the  people. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL  WAR.  147 


THE  TRIAL  OF  MR.  JEFFERSON  DAVIS  —  THE  DEPLORABLE  CON 
DITION    OF    THE    AMERICAN    JUDICIARY THE    HYPOCRISY 

AND  INCOMPETENCY  OF  S.  P.  CHASE. 

After  the  conclusion  of  the  late  war,  every  good  man  hoped, 
as  a  source  of  consolation,  that  quiet,  peace  and  good  will  would 
return  to  the  country.  Every  government  of  modern  times  had 
set  the  example  of  general  amnesty,  and  it  seemed  but  the  exer 
cise  of  the  simplest  common  sense  for  President  Johnson  to  pave 
the  way  for  general  prosperity  and  universal  harmony  by  a  gen 
eral  amnesty.  This  he  did  not  do.  Following  the  bad  advice 
of  the  prince  of  liars  and  cunning  demagogues,  Seward,  and 
under  the  dictation  of  the  monster  Stanton,  Mr.  Johnson  let  go 
by  the  golden  opportunity  of  proclaiming  the  oblivion  of  all  the 
unhappy  past.  For  two  long  years  the  world  was  shocked  at 
the  rjenned  cruelty  visited  upon  Mr.  Davis  after  his  arrest.  The 
government  lent  its  countenance  to  the  slander  of  himself  and 
family ;  that  he  was  a  coward,  dressed  in  woman's  clothes,  not 
withstanding  he  wore  upon  his  person  scars  inflicted  by  enemies 
whilst  fighting  under  the  colors  of  the  old  United  States  on  the 
bloody  battle-fields  of  Mexico.  His  pure  and  excellent  father, 
who  had  been  a  Revolutionary  soldier  and  many  years  in  his 
grave,  was  slandered  as  a  desperate  character.  When  imprisoned 
contrary  to  the  usages  of  civilized  warfare  in  dealing  with  such 
prisoners,  he  was  ironed  most  rudely,  and  without  any  justifica 
tion,  offered  the  harshest  indignities  by  the  lowest  and  most  cow 
ardly  wretches.  For  two  long  years  the  most  horrible  tortures 
ever  offered  to  a  dying  man  —  worse  than  the  thumb-screw  or 
boot,  because  more  exquisite  and  enduring  - — were  inflicted  upon 
this  prisoner.  Being  nearly  blind,  and  his  eyes  painfully  sensi 
tive  to  the  light,  the  glaring  painful  rays  were  thrown  upon 
them  for  two  long  years.  Having  suffered  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  from  the  most  excruciating  nervous  disease,  the  rough, 
rude  tread  of  the  soldier  re-echoed  in  the  vaults  of  the  damp 
and  gloomy  prison  from  morning  till  night,  from  night  till  morn 
ing,  each  day  hoping  that  this  slow,  acute,  distressing  torture 
would  bereave  him  of  his  reason,  and  give  to  the  ghouls  a  pre 
text  for  declaring  him  insane  for  his  treason,  or  that  he  might 
die  on  their  hands.  He  was  subjected  to  such  treatment  as  the 
vilest  outcast  prisoners  are  never  made  to  endure;  was  not 
allowed  for  a  time  the  use  of  knives  and  forks,  and  ate  his  rude 
meals  with  his  fingers.  That  he  might  be  bereft  of  the  privilege 
of  seeing  a  human  face,  or  hearing  the  human  voice,  the  guard 


148  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

were  not  allowed  to  speak  to  him.  After  an  imprisonment  of 
two  such  years  as  only  the  English  prison  ships  or  the  black 
hole  of  Calcutta  could  equal,  he  was  led  out  under  pretence  of 
trial.  Attorney  General  Speed  says  that  he  preserved  him  from 
a  military  butchery  at  the  hands  of  Stanton.  A  reward  was 
offered  for  Mr.  Davis,  as  a  conspirator  assisting  in  the  death  of 
President  Lincoln.  Among  all  of  the  perjured  Conovers,  none 
could  be  hired  to  swear  against  him ;  among  all  the  suborning 
Ashleys,  there  was  none  to  procure  witnesses  for  the  purpose,  until 
the  trial  was  abandoned.  Finally,  when  insulted  humanity  be 
gan  to  complain,  outraged  decency  hung  her  head  and  justice 
shrieked  in  agony  at  such  crimes  as  made  angels  weep,  a  trial  was 
proposed  for  Mr.  Davis.  In  all  this  time  the  Northern  Protes 
tant  clergy  were  crying  for  blood  and  executions,  praying  for  the 
death  of  Mr.  Davis  and  the  damnation  of  rebels. 

In  all  these  continued  outrages,  not  one  word  was  uttered  for 
mercy,  humanity,  or  civilization.  The  preachers  exceeded  all 
bounds  of  vindictiveness.  Like  the  medicine-men  of  the  Indians, 
or  like  the  priests  of  the  Grand  Llama,  or  like  the  conjurers 
among  the  Mokalolo  negroes,  to  whose  place  they  aspired,  the 
preachers  each  to  exceed  the  others,  and  all  to  join  in  one  general 
outcry  for  revenge,  blood  and  brutality,  justified  every  crime 
that  was  committed  against  a  feeble  old  man,  tottering  on  the 
verge  of  the  grave,  whose  only  crime  was  that  he  accepted  an 
office  at  the  hands  of  the  people  who  had  determined  to  erect  a 
new  government;  and  who  was  just  as  guilty  and  no  more  than 
every  other  person  participating  in  the  revolution  precipitated  by 
the  wickedness  of  such  men  as  Wade,  Chase,  John  Brown,  Ger- 
rit  Smith  and  Garrison,  and  resisted  by  Davis,  Toombs,  &c. 

When  the  trial  was  proposed,  objections  were  raised  every 
where  among  the  persecutors  to  a  trial  in  the  civil  courts.  After 
a  long  conflict,  it  was  finally  concluded  to  enact  this  farce  in  the 
city  of  Richmond,  early  in  the  Spring  of  1867.  The  history  of 
the  bail  bond,  Greeley,  &c.,  is  before  the  country. 

After  the  trial  of  Mr.  Davis  was  agreed  upon,  it  was  a  matter 
of  dispute  before  whom  it  should  take  place.  The  old  and  able 
District  Judges  of  Virginia  were  moved  during  the  civil  war.  In 
fact,  if  Virginia  is  not  a  State,  within  the  meaning  of  that  term 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  how  can  there  be  Uni 
ted  States  District  Judges  in  Virginia,  Tennessee,  Georgia,  Flor 
ida,  Arkansas  or  Alabama?  How  can  the  New  York  shyster, 
Dick  Busteed,  be  District  Judge  in  the  State  of  Alabama,  if  Ala 
bama  is  not  a  State? — and  why  should  such  an  irresponsible 
vulgarian  fill  such  a  place  against  the  will  of  a  people  who  have, 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  149 

in  their  own  community,  able  Judges  of  the  common  law,  who 
would  have  dignified  and  adorned  the  British  or  American  judi 
ciary  at  any  period  of  its  history  ?  If  it  is  replied  that  these 
pure  and  able  men  were  not  loyal,  and  that  the  loyal  men  of 
Alabama  had  neither  sense,  decency  nor  dignity,  then  it  is  far 
better  for  the  cause  of  justice  and  truth,  that  decent,  honest  reb 
els  be  appointed  to  do  justice  between  man  and  man,  than  that  the 
sinks  of  New  York  be  dragged  —  that  its  shysters,  pettifoggers 
and  barraters  be  searched  for  the  lowest,  meanest,  most  abandoned 
and  abominable  among  them,  to  be  sent  to  a  distant  land  to  eat 
oysters,  levy  black-mail  and  pretend  to  be  Judges  in  a  State 
that  is  not  a  State,  in  a  court  that  is  not  a  court,  according  to 
laws  that  are  not  laws  —  or  that  are  suspended  as  lawrs.  In  the 
State  of  Virginia  —  where  JeiFerson  Davis  was  indicted,  but 
which  the  prosecutors  say  is  not  a  State — the  late  President  ap 
pointed  one  John  C.  Underwood  to  preside  in  a  judicial  district 
which  is  not  by  law  a  judicial  district. 

The  qualifications  of  this  creature  Underwood  to  preside  over 
the  trial  of  Mr.  Davis  or  any  other  person  in  court,  is  very 
clearly  analysed  as  follows : 

He  is  a  sham  Judge  in  Virginia,  according  to  their  own  posi 
tion,  for  no  other  reason  than  because  he  is  not  a  Virginian. 

When  everybody  else  was  living  in  peace,  quiet  and  harmony, 
this  Underwood  had  rendered  himself  so  obnoxious  to  the  peo 
ple  by  his  association  with  negroes,  and  stirring  up  strife  and  in 
surrection,  that  he  was  intolerable,  and  excluded  the  society  of 
gentlemen,  for  which  he  had  no  earthly  qualification.  But  he 
was  grieved  that  the  people  would  give  him  no  plausible  excuse 
for  fleeing  as  a  martyr  from  home.  Because  they  would  not,  he 
went  North  and  declared  himself  a  martyr  to  liberty  !  The  New 
York  Tribune  and  other  Northern  papers  manufactured  a  mar 
tyr  of  him.  But  nobody  killed  him,  nobody  hurt  him,  nobody 
cared  for  him.  He  was  secure  in  the  public  contempt. 

Underwood  formerly  kept  a  stand  of  second-hand  books  in 
the  street  stalls  of  New  York,  it  is  said;  and  failing  to  mend  his 
fortunes  at  that  business,  went  to  Virginia,  where  he  became 
a  lawyer  under  the  new  state  of  things.  As  a  lawyer  nobody 
knows  hun,  and  everybody  laughs  at  the  idea  of  his  being  a  law 
yer  at  all. 

The  measureless,  atrocious  corruption  of  this  creature — if  so 
stupid  a  person  can  be  corrupt — is  evinced  in  the  confiscation 
sales,  at  which  Underwood  decreed  forfeiture,  bid  in  the  proper 
ty,  and  confirmed  the  sales — by  which  he  came  into  possession 
of  property  at  ten  per  cent,  of  its  true  value. 


150  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

Tin's  character  of  a  judge  would  charitably  preclude  from  his 
court  any  human  being  entitled  to  justice  in  either  civil  or  crim 
inal  courts.  Underwood,  grossly  ignorant  and  stupid  as  he 
might  be,  would  be  exceedingly  harmless  before  an  intelligent, 
old-fashioned  Virginia  jury,  such  as  tried  Aaron  Burr,  or  were 
ordinarily  summoned  into  the  courts  of  John  Marshall,  Philip 
P.  Barbour,  Pennybacker  or  Brockenborough. 

But,  as  though  to  burlesque  all  the  judiciary,  and  have  Barney 
Williams  in  his  comic  character,  play  in  the  District  Court  where 
there  is  no  district,  this  man  Underwood  summoned  negro  jury 
men  to  sit  upon  the  jury  which  was  to  try  Mr.  D.avis,  and 
actually  had  them  summoned  for  that  purpose  preparatory 
to  the  trial.  The  trial  of  Mr.  Davis  before  Underwood  by  a 
negro  jury  would  be  such  a  farce  as  was  never  played  before. 
Chandler,  the  District  Attorney,  or  Speed,  if  he  had  been  re 
tained,  would  be  in  his  element  in  such  a  place. 

These  fellows,  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives,  could  dictate 
laws  to  the  courts.  But  when  Charles  O'Connor  and  Wm.  B. 
Keed  would  commence  their  argument,  the  scene  would  beggar 
all  description.  When  these  gentlemen  would  commence  to 
quote  authorities  upon  the  law  of  nations,  such  as  Paifendorf, 
Grotious,  Burlamqni  and  Montesquieu,  the  judge  would  declare 
that  he  had  never  heard  these  judges  before,  and  the  negro  jury 
men  would  swear  that  they  were  Jews  among  the  Dutch  that  had 
lately  emigrated  to  Virginia;  whilst  Chandler  would  pompously 
assume  that  such  authorities  were  not  allowable  in  an  enlighten 
ed  court. 

But  these  Judges,  Busteed  and  Chandler,  are  but  a  fair  sam 
ple  of  the  new  and  shining  lights  that  have  been  introduced  into 
the  reconstructed  judiciary  of  the  country.  Sam  Miller,  of  Iowa, 
and  Judge  of  the  North-western  District,  was  formerly  a 
Kentucky  mountain  doctor  of  but  poor  success  in  the  medical 
profession.  He  read  the  Iowa  code,  was  never  in  a  legislative 
body,  was  never  a  judge  in  any  of  the  State  courts,  had  but  a  few 
years7  practice,  was  quite  ignorant  of  the  common  law.  This 
Judge  Miller  is  a  sample,  and  quite  an  average  of  the  late  judi 
cial  appointments. 

But  Mr.  Davis'  enemies  actually  became  ashamed  to  have  him 
tried  before  Judge  Underwood,  and  tried  to  have  Chase  sit  upon 
the  trial.  Chase  testifies  before  the  Impeachment  Committee 
that  he  knew  of  no  reason  why  Davis  was  not  tried.  Last  spring 
Chase  could  not  try  him  ;  therefore  the  trial  was  postponed.  .  In 
November,  Chase  could  not  try  him;  therefore  the  trial  was 
postponed  until  March.  In  March,  Chase  was  sitting  on  the 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL,    WAR.  151 

Supreme  Bench,  and  therefore  the  trial  was  postponed  again, 
and  probably  will  continue  to  be  postponed,  unless  President 
Johnson  learns  some  sense,  and  to  get  rid  of  all  this  farce  — 
hypocrisy  and  villainy  —  by  a  short  cut,  issues  a  general  am 
nesty  proclamation,  and  invites  all  refugees  home  to  attend  to 
business,  build  up  the  country,  and  establish  quiet,  harmony  and 
peace. 

Salmon  P.  Chase  will  defer  sitting  upon  the  trial  of  Davis  as 
long  as  possible. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  Mr.  Chase  does  not  desire  to  enter 
into  such  a  trial.  The  iirst  is,  that  Mr.  Chase  is  not  a  profound, 
thoroughly  read  or  extensively  practiced  lawyer.  But  he  is  a  very 
shrewd  man,  and  may  direct  attention  from  that  fact,  even  on 
the  Supreme  Bench,  surrounded  as  he  is  by  very  common-place 
men,  and  enlightened,  as  he  always  is,  by  the  ablest  members  of 
the  bar,  such  as  Black,  Cushing,  and  O'Connor.  But  in  a  case 
like  the  treason  of  Davis,  Chase  is  not  prepared  for  such  con 
troversy  as  will  be  hurled  into  that  great  American  conflict. 

Chase  was  never  a  lawyer  of  eminence  in  Ohio ;  he  rarely 
appeared  before  the  Supreme  Court,  and  was  never  ranked  with 
Henry  Stanbery,  Thomas  Ewing,  Thurman,  Judge  McLean, 
Pugh,  Kanney,  or  the  older  and  abler  men  of  the  Ohio  bar. 
Chase  is  a  politician  merely.  Unfortunately  for  himself  in  this 
trial,  he  is  a  revolutionist.  Chase  issued  an  inflammatory  rev 
olutionary  address  on  Sunday  against  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill. 
He,  as  Governor,  Senator,  and  in  every  other  position,  took  the 
highest  States  rights  and  secession  grounds  upon  the  subject  of 
the  resistance  of  the  General  Government  by  the  States — re 
fusing  to  obey  requisitions,  the  return  of  fugitives  from  justice, 
and  in  every  other  essential  feature  of  the  destructive  doctrines, 
Mr.  Chase  would  justly  rank  with  the  secessionists. 

The  country  demands  a  fair  trial  before  just  and  able  judges. 
That  this  is  not  done  is  a  scandal  to  the  country,  in  which  Chief 
Justice  Chase  is  the  chief  and  guilty  party. 

During  the  whole  period  of  the  war  the  land  was  one  grand, 
frightful,  destroying  mob.  The  Supreme  Court  sat  quietly  by 
the  murderers  and  bade  them  God-speed. 

The  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  was  denied  to  prisoners ;  indeed, 
the  imbecile  old  man  who  presided  over  the  Southern  District  of 
Ohio  gave,  as  a  reason  for  refusal  to  issue  the  writ  in  the  case  of 
Mr.  "Vallandigham,  that  he  feared  the  military  interference ;  and, 
like  a  school-boy,  ran  away  from  the  bench  and  met  the  military 


152  CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

mob,  to  receive  their  congratulations  and  encourage  them  in  their 
crimes  against  liberty. 

The  men  appointed  to  the  Supreme  Bench  were  zealous  as 
fresh  converts  to  the  doctrines  of  arbitrary  power. 

An  infuriated  mob  of  vagabond  soldiers  that  lingered  around 

o  O 

the  hospitals  in  Keokuk,  assailed  the  house  of  Judge  Clagett. 

The  daughter  of  the  Judge,  in  exceedingly  feeble  health,  lying 
in  bed  in  the  dead  hours  of  the  night,  was  awakened  by  the 
firing  of  cannon,  when  the  broken  glass  of  the  window  fell  upon 
her  face  and  mangled  her  flesh,  from  which  she  never  recovered, 
but  which  hastened  her  journey  to  the  realms  of  light. 

After  these  mobs  had  gone  the  round,  insulting  and  terrifying 
the  people,  they  proceeded  to  receive  the  congratulations  of  Judge 
Miller,  newly  appointed  to  the  Supreme  Bench. 

The  Judge  congratulated  and  cheered  these  criminals  in  their 
lawless  carousals. 

Among  the  new  district  appointees  was  Charles  Sherman,  of 
the  Northern  District  of  Ohio,  who  could  not,  at  the  peril  of  his 
salvation,  have  carried  a  case  through  the  ordinary  State  Courts 
without  assistance.  This  man,  in  the  early  part  of  the  war,  was 
engaged  in  a  menial  military  service. 

When  Judge  Hall,  of  Bucyrus,  was  arrested,  from  the  cruel 
ties  of  which  he  died,  this  man  Sherman  declared  that  the  ob 
ject  of  these  arrests  was  to  make  Democracy  odious,  and  subject 
the  Democrats  to  general  denunciation.  This  man  was  a1  most 
busy  and  mischievous  element  of  the  Provost  Marshal's  espionage. 
Such  was  the  selvage  of  the  legal  profession,  that  was  by  the 
most  questionable  means  placed  in  the  judgment-seat  as  guard 
ians  of  your  children,  distributors  of  your  estates,  and  the  trus 
tees  of  liberty  upon  the  American  continent. 

The  destruction  of  the  judiciary  brings  with  it  no  compensa 
tion  itself  to  atone  for  the  injuries  inflicted  upon  the  people. 

Self-respect  alone  preserves  personal  dignity  and  maintains 
personal  honor. 

The  judiciary  of  our  ancestors  yielded  not  to  the  command  of 
kings,  nor  changed  their  verdict  in  the  presence  of  armies. 

The  just  judge  is  God's  vicegerent  upon  earth,  clothed  with 
divine  powers,  who  bears  not  the  sword  of  God  in  vain. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  153 

The  American  judiciary  have  broken  down  the  lofty  standard 
of  justice,  and  dragged  their  holy  ermine  in  the  dust;  like 
trembling  sycophants  they  begged  for  peace  and  yielded  up  prin 
ciples  of  justice,  that  the  iron  heart  and  the  brazen  face  of  the 
tyrants,  supported  by  armies,  could  not  wrench  from  our  fathers. 

How  inscrutably  rewards  follow  works,  must  now  be  felt  on 
every  bench  in  the  land. 

The  decisions  of  the  highest  courts  are  treated  with  contempt, 
and  the  judges  feel  flattered  that  they  are  not  hurried  off  to  the 
nearest  prisons ;  and  have  so  abased  themselves  that  they  readily 
approve  the  most  disgraceful  insults  offered  to  the  judicial  ermine 
in  every  part  of  the  country.  Military  Commissions,  whose  very 
existence  has  been  declared  unconstitutional,  enforce  their  decis 
ions  to  execution.  In  pursuance  of  these  military  usurpations, 
innocent  men  are  pining  away  in  loathesome  prisons  or  enduring 
the  most  excruciating  torture  in  lonely  islands  of  the  seacoast; 
men  who  have  never  been  tried  or  sentenced  by  any  recognized 
court  of  competent  authority,  who  have  an  inalienable  right  to 
the  protection  of  law,  for  which  the  good  name  of  the  American 
government  has  been  pledged  in  her  Constitution,  her  laws,  her 
treaties,  her  public  declarations,  and  her  diplomatic  associations 
with  the  civilized  world. 

Indignant  justice  turns  her  head  away  from  the  picture  of  her 
humiliation. 

The  people  avoid  their  ancient  temple  of  security.  Society 
shudders  in  contemplation  of  the  startling  truth,  that  the  holy 
altars  of  justice  have  become  a  den  of  thieves. 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL,    WAK. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

"THE  NEW  NATION." 

THERE  is  this  difference  between  the  villain  and  the  fool,  that 
while  the  villain  deceives  other  people,  the  fool  deceives  himself. 
This  is  also  the  difference  between  the  hypocrite  and  the  zealot; 
and  these  two  form  the  body  of  every  destructive  revolution. 
The  revolutionary  character  of  the  late  war,  and  the  revolution 
in  our  theory  and  form  of  governments,  are  as  complete  as  force 
and  purpose  make  them. 

The  revolutionists  in  triumph  have  called  this  a  "  New  Nation," 
not  without  reason. 

This  name  is  significant  of  the  entire  abolition  of  our  old  civil 
governments  in  America. 

Since  the  year  1860  we  have  had  three  "  New  Nations/'  under 
their  several  governments  de  facto,  with  such  thrilling  termina 
tions  as  startled  mankind. 

The  first  of  these  was  the  Confederate  States,  over  which  Mr. 
Davis  was  elected  President. 

The  second,  the  Mexican  empire  under  the  assumed  reign  of 
Maximilian,  who  came  from  Austria  to  replant  the  European 
system  upon  the  American  continent,  as  the  heir  of  Charles  V, 
and  protege  of  Louis  Napoleon. 

The  third  was  the  usurpation  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  which 
entirely  abrogated  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  ruled 
the  people  by  arbitrary  power. 

The  fate  of  these  rulers  is  a  most  significant  vindication  of  the 
law  of  God,  that  he  who  takes  up  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the 
sword. 

The  Confederate  States  were  overthrown ;  the  President  cap 
tured  ;  imprisoned,  chained,  tortured  and  released  on  bail,  after 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR.  155 

suffering  ten  thousand  deaths  at  the  hands  of  torturers,  such  as 
would  have  added  cruelty  to  the  reign  of  the  Borgias. 

The  people  of  the  Confederate  States  have  been  abandoned  to 
a  system  for  which  neither  the  history  nor  the  philosophy  of  gov 
ernment  furnishes  a  name  or  a  parallel. 

Under  pretence  of  reconstructing  the  States  of  the  Union, 
every  vestige  of  liberty  has  been  destroyed. 

The  Reconstruction.  Bill  is  the  most  monstrous  crime  of  the 
Christian  era. 

It  is  a  crime  against  free  government  in  this  —  that  it  disfran 
chises  without  indictment,  trial,  or  any  other  process  of  law,  the 
learned,  intelligent  and  highly  cultivated  citizens  representing 
the  business,  manufactures,  commerce,  navigation  and  property  of 
eleven  millions  of  people  who,  from  time  immemorial,  have  been 
free. 

It  is  a  crime  against  civilization  in  this  —  that  it  transfers  the 
powers  of  legislation  and  administration  from  the  violently  dis 
franchised  intellect  of  the  country,  to  the  will,  passion  and  vio 
lence  of  the  African  barbarians  among  them; who  trample  down 
those  glorious  landmarks  and  eminent  triumphs  of  progress  which 
have  cost  centuries  of  labor  and  celebrates  the  genius  of  ages. 

It  is  a  crime  against  Christianity  in  this  —  that  it  transfers 
the  government  of  a  Christian  people  to  the  control  of  a  degraded, 
imbecile  race  of  heathens,  who  yet  retain  the  idolatry  and  super 
stitions  of  the  most  revolting  systems  of  heathen  worship. 

It  is  a  crime  against  reason  in  this,  that  it  places  bayonets  in 
the  hands  of  the  unreasoning  rabble,  to  destroy  life,  liberty  and 
property  at  will,  in  violation  of  that  established  custom,  among 
savage  and  civilized  men,  of  committing  the  rule  of  tribes,  na 
tions  and  kingdoms,  to  the  ablest  and  purest  men. 

It  is  a  crime  against  human  nature,  which  commits  its  preser 
vation  to  its  most  elevated  and  superior  races,  and  the  most  emi 
nent  and  trustworthy  of  every  race,  in  this,  that  it  degrades  the 
highest  type  of  the  human  family  to  a  subordination  to  the  very 
lowest  species  of  the  race  of  man. 

The  Reconstruction  Bill  is  in  its  details  and  execution  more 
atrocious  than  any  usurpation  ever  exercised  by  Great  Britain 
over  Ireland,  by  Russia  over  Poland,  by  Austria  over  Hungary, 


156  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR, 

cruel  and  abominable  as  they  have  been  —  in  this,  that  the  rulers 
of  these  conquered  people  were  of  the  same  general  race,  customs, 
habits,  religion  and  color,  while  the  voters  to  whom  is  committed 
the  rule  of  the  people  of  the  excluded  States  are  of  a  different 
race,  with  no  common  sympathies,  capacities,  interests;  destinies 
or  hopes. 

The  Mexican  empire  was  destroyed  by  the  people ;  the  Em 
peror  summarily  butchered  by  his  military  enemies,  and  the  mon 
grel  savages  of  the  country  returned  to  their  native  element  of 
anarchy.  The  third  New  Nation  entirely  destroyed  constitu 
tional  government,  introduced  conscription,  the  old  machinery  of 
Eastern  tyrants,  and  disintegrated  the  old  State  governments  until 
nothing  of  the  past  remains. 

The  wicked  and  unfortunate  President,  who  declared  himself 
above  constitutions  and  laws,  built  a  pyramidal  throne  upon 
bones  and  skulls,  cemented  by  the  blood  of  our  citizens,  which 
was  undermined  and  fell. 

The  usurper  suffered  that  terrible  retribution  of  God  which 
no  roan  escapes. 

"  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  also  shall  his  blood  be 
shed." 

How  fearfully  and  how  wonderfully  has  God  punished  the 
wicked  men  who  have  overthrown  our  American  system  of  gov 
ernment  by  consent. 

Lovejoy,  who  led  the  revolutionary  van  with  a  fiery,  furious 
eloquence  —  the  ablest  of  them  all  —  departed  in  the  midst  of 
his  years,  after  having  laid  down  the  cross  to  take  up  the  sword. 

Next  followed  Baker,  who  left  the  heavenly  avocation  and 
abandoned  the  sword  of  the  Spirit  for  "  the  bubble  reputation  in 
the  cannon's  mouth,"  was  slaughtered  on  the  battle-field,  the 
victim  of  ferocious  military  imbecility. 

Winter  Davis,  who  led  the  rabble  mob  of  Baltimore  for  years, 
played  spy  upon  his  neighbors,  until  Baltimore  ran  red  with 
blood,  and  in  Chicago  announced  and  advocated  the  horrible  doc 
trine  of  negro  voting  to  retain  political  power,  consumed  by  the 
vindictive  fires  of  his  own  vengeance,  is  no  more. 

Poor  old  Giddings  was  smitten  down  in  a  billiard  saloon  in  a 
foreign  land. 


CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR.  157 

Gen.  Lane,  who  ravaged  Missouri,  and  kindled  the  first  fires 
of  the  civil  war,  haunted  by  the  apparitions  of  his  murdered 
victims,  who  followed  him  day  and  night,  blew  out  his  own 
brains,  and  sought  refuge  in  the  midnight  of  eternity,  where 
sunless  regions  would  hide  him  from  the  frown  of  Heaven. 

Preston  King  sat  guard  at  the  portals  of  the  White  House  on  the 
day  of  the  carnival  which  concluded  the  saturnalia  of  Lincoln's 
horrible  reign  of  crime  and  terror. 

Poor  Anna  Surratt  fell  upon  the  door-steps  of  the  Presiden 
tial  mansion,  praying  admission  to  pour  her  flood  of  tears  upon 
the  feet  of  an  Executive,  sworn  to  give  every  human  being  a 
fair  trial  according  to  law,  and  plead  in  the  ear  of  God  for  jus 
tice  through  His  appointed  vicegerent  upon  earth. 

The  poor  girl  was  thrust  away  from  the  outer  door  by  the 
servant,  who,  smiling  upon  every  one  else,  frowned  upon  her. 
In  the  inner  chamber,  sat  King  and  the  President,  deaf  to  the 
appeals  of  law,  justice,  mercy,  and  human  nature. 

Mrs.  Surratt  was  arrested,  insulted,  manacled,  shackled,  tor 
tured,  murdered  without  law,  without  evidence,  without  a  court, 
without  trial.  Florence,  Turkey  or  Russia,  in  their  darkest 
days,  might  well  have  blushed  at  these  proceedings.  Only  the 
Indians,  Negroes  and  Chinese  had  given  precedent  for  this  new 
and  horrible  style  of  things.  When  on  the  scaffold,  the  coward 
ly  soldier  appointed  to  the  sickening,  bloody  work,  thrust  him 
self  between  her  and  her  priest,  to  suppress  her  dying  declara 
tion  of  innocence.  She  was  entirely  exculpated  by  Powell,  who 
stabbed  Seward.  She  brought  up  from  the  altars  of  God  the 
testimonials  of  a  devoted  ministry  to  a  spotless  Christian  life 
from  childhood.  Even  the  military  commission,  with  cruel 
fanatics  like  Hunter,  malignant  creatures  like  Bingham,  miser 
able,  sinister  wretches  like  Eakin,  and  the  abortionist  and  vil 
lage-burner  Harris,  recommended  her  to  mercy.  The  cold 
blooded  murderer  Stanton,  kept  from  the  President  the  paper. 
The  hypocritical  villain  Holt,  all  smeared  with  innocent  blood, 
was  ashamed  of  the  murder  of  the  woman.  Preston  King  made 
the  White  House  merry  as  on  the  day  when  Willie  Lincoln 
mingled  the  suppressed  groans  of  his  last  hours  with  the  revelry 
of  the  ball-room  beneath.  This  proved  too  much  for  King. 


158  CEIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

When  wine  no  longer  inflamed  his  passions  into  hilarity,  nor 
beclouded  his  understanding,  his  soul  was  seized  with  amaurosis. 
The  rattling  chains  that  bound  her  to  the  damp,  gloomy  cell ; 
the  coarse,  rough  voice  of  the  mercenaries,  mellowed  by  contact 
with  the  silvery,  innocent  tones  of  the  martyr;  the  grating  of  the 
prison  doors ;  the  rattling  of  musketry ;  that  last,  sweet  word 
whispered  in  the  ear  of  her  spiritual  father,  " I  am  innocent" 
sounded  like  the  last  awakening  trumpet  of  God  in  his  ear. 
Night  after  night  the  manacled  victim  of  perjury  and  arbitrary 
power  would  alternate  the  apparition  with  her  heavenly  vest 
ments,  as  she  stood  before  his  bedside,  or  paced  his  room,  or 
aroused  him  from  his  sleep,  to  hear  the  piteous  cries  of  the  beau 
tiful  Anna,  standing  by  the  Presidential  mansion,  or  kneeling 
upon  the  cold  stone,  begging  the  Saviour  to  intercede  with  the 
Heavenly  Father  to  move  the  stony  hearts  of  tyrants  to  pity,  and 
save  her  mother.  Scarcely  had  the  swooning  sleep  of  opiates 
quieted  his  broken  rest,  until  the  murdered  woman  would  stalk 
forth  from  the  unconsecrated  grave,  and  point  the  sleeper  to  the 
scars  upon  her  body,  the  coarse  habiliments  and  unhallowed 
scenes  of  the  execution.  The  innocent,  unprotected,  homeless 
daughter  would  again  join  her  mother  in  the  scene.  He  awoke, 
arose,  dressed  himself,-  sought  comfort  in  society ;  fled  to  the  busy 
scenes  of  office,  but  there  still  stood  by  his  side  the  phantom  of 
the  martyred  woman  and  her  lovely  child.  The  cruel  stories  of 
provost  guards,  the  distress  created  by  the  tax-gatherer,  the  rev 
elry  of  political  victories,  only  intensified  his  suffering.  The 
pronunciation  of  the  names  of  these  injured  people  startled  his 
nervous  system  and  shook  his  frame. 

The  apparitions  accompanied  him  to  the  table,  followed  him 
on  the  streets,  mingled  in  the  crowds  of  the  ferry-boat;  as  one 
pursued  by  a  legion  of  demons,  he  fled  ;  and  in  his  delirium, 
sought  a  hiding-place  on  the  ocean,  only  to  awake  up  to  meet  his 
victim  face  to  face,  before  the  judgment-seat  of  God. 

Many  of  these  wicked  men,  pursued  by  their  crimes,  sought 
refuge  in  their  own  destruction.  Others,  more  guilty,  remain 
among  us,  only  to  flee  to  other  lands,  endure  the  punishment 
provided  by  law,  or  receive  pardon  for  their  crimes  at  the  hands 
of  a  merciful,  injured  people. 


CRIMES   OF   THE    CIVIL   WAR.  159 

Such  are  the  inscrutable  judgments  of  God  that  follow  wick 
edness. 

THE    CIVIL  WAR  HAS  DESTROYED  THE  DECENCY  AND    DIGNITY 
OF  PUBLIC  OFFICERS. 

The  simplicity  of  our  fathers  was  accompanied  by  a  decency 
and  dignity  of  deportment,  which  awarded  to  them  the  admira 
tion  of  the  governments  of  the  world. 

George  Washington  had  an  inherent  personal  majesty  which 
could  not  be  imitated  by  all  the  magnificent  trappings  of  imperial 
power. 

Jefferson  preserved  a  grand  simplicity  that  commanded  uni 
versal  respect. 

Our  Presidents  had  all  been  cultivated  gentlemen  of  simple 
manners  and  exemplary  personal  habits. 

The  Presidential  Mansion  was  distinguished  for  the  propriety, 
purity  and  excellent  taste  of  its  inmates.  No  such  debauchee  as 
Henry  VIII. ;  no  such  libertine  as  George  IV.;  no  such  volup 
tuary  as  Louis  XIV.,  had  filled  the  Executive  chair.  No  such 
person  as  Catherine  II.,  or  the  female  courtiers  of  Southern 
Europe,  had  friends  at  the  White  House.  From  Martha 
Washington  downward  to  Mrs.  Pierce,  the  wives  of  the  Presi 
dents  were  distinguished  for  their  intelligence,  taste,  and  purity 
of  character;  the  true  representatives  of  the  real  womanhood 
of  America. 

No  soldier  ever  stood  guard  to  a  President,  or  cavalcade  was 
quartered  upon  the  quiet  grounds  of  his  unpretending  home. 
The  beautiful  bronze  statue  of  Jackson,  the  citizen,  soldier, 
President,  was  the  only  indication  of  military  presence  at  the 
White  House. 

Plain,  simple,  accessible  and  communicative,  our  earlier  Pres 
idents  walked  out  upon  the  street,  unattended;  and  like  other 
quiet  gentlemen,  were  known  only  by  their  personal  acquaintances 
from  the  community  in  which  they  mingled. 

The  levees  were  open  to  every  citizen  who  understood  the 
proprieties  of  life  and  conformed  to  the  usages  of  society.  The 
rich  and  poor  met  together ;  the  military  and  civilian  were  the 
common  guests,  and  each  were  alike  protected  by  law. 


160  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

Foreign  ministers,  who  came  from  courts  guarded  by  bayonets, 
were  amazed  at  the  ease  with  which  thirty  millions  of  freemen 
were  governed  without  sabres,  bayonets,  epaulettes,  or  provost 
.marshals'  guards. 

The  virtue  and  intelligence  of  our  ladies  had  captivated  foreign 
ministers,  who  took  them  to  foreign  courts  to  share  the  honors 
bestowed  by  sovereign  powers.  Such  was  our  enviable  history 
at  the  opening  of  the  civil  war. 

The  advent  of  President  Lincoln  to  the  White  House  inaugu 
rated  a  new  era  in  the  social  morals  of  the  country. 

The  aged  President,  Buchanan,  in  the  evening  of  life,  retired 
from  the  White  House,  which  had  been  kept  in  a  style  of  elegant 
simplicity  by  his  accomplished  niece,  Miss  Harriet  Lane. 

Mrs.  Lincoln,  whose  well  known  history  is  before  the  public, 
entered  the  Presidential  home  as  the  presiding  genius.  She  was 
soon  surrounded  by  teachers  of  etiquette,  dancing  masters,  and 
the  new  style  of  flippant  gentility  which  took  possession  of  the 
country. 

In  presenting  a  simple  statement  of  the  manners,  customs, 
visitors,  and  appointees,  the  mildest  form  of  justice  seems  a  cru 
elty  scarcely  less  than  torture  to  the  new-comers. 

Soon  after  the  advent  of  the  new  occupants,  the  White  House 
was  crowded  with  a  new  class  of  visitors,  editors,  politicians, 
and  adventurers.  N.  P.  Willis,  conspicuous  in  scandal  trials, 
wrote  elaborate  essays  and  sketches  of  the  "  rosy  queen/7  the 
"  little  prince,"  and  such  sickening  communications  as  excited  sur 
prise  even  among  the  sycophants  of  power.  Sickles  was  an  inti 
mate  friend  and  adviser  of  the  President,  and  Wyckoff,  the 
European  seandal-mongsr,  cams  to  teach  the  lessons  of  manners 
to  the  "rosy  queen"  and  "little  princes." 

Those  persons  who  had  been  unknown  heretofore  in  the  circle 
of  the  higher  departments  of  the  Government,  were  now  its 
chief  directors.  A  large  volume  would  not  contain  the  list  of 
these  new-comers  into  political  circles. 

The  military  appointments  were  made  in  jest  and  were  intend 
ed  for  jest. 

The  foreign  ministers  were  such  as  never  represented  any  other 
government  abroad.  A  striking  illustration  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  161 

advisers  is  given  in  the  two  ministers  who  went  to  make  terms 
of  peace  with  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis. 

Jacques,  a  Methodist  minister,  went  to  Eichmond ;  entered 
into  an  insolent  interview  with  the  President  of  the  Confederate 
States ;  returned  to  Louisville ;  entered  as  an  accomplice  in  a 
murder,  and  killed,  with  his  own  unborn  child,  an  unprotected 
woman  whom  he  had  previously  destroyed.  Gilmore  returned 
to  New  England  to  answer  in  court  for  the  seduction  of  his  own 
servant. 

These  are  samples  of  the  appointees  in  the  army,  in  the  courts, 
everywhere.  But  the  government  of  the  White  House  exceeded 
all  powers  of  description,  and  from  the  decency  of  its  manage 
ment,  forbids  broad  allusions. 

The  White  House  was  surrounded  by  soldiers.  "  The  little 
Princes "  could  detain  regiments.  The  sovereign  of  the  New 
Nation  was  surrounded  by  cavalcades  wherever  he  went,  as  his 
companions  and  friends.  The  history  of  the  indiscretions,  inde 
cencies  and  follies  of  each  regiment,  would  require  the  details  of 
a  large  volume. 

The  sovereign  ascended  the  throne  with  a  very  common  town 
property  worth  nothing  like  ten  thousand  dollars.  He  lived 
four  years  in  the  greatest  extravagance ;  received  only  one  hun 
dred  thousand  dollars  salary,  and  left  an  estate  worth  an  eighth 
of  a  million. 

Every  applicant  for  office  preceded  or  followed  his  application 
with  a  bribe  in  shape  of  presents  to  the  President,  in  the  form  of 
fine  horses  and  carriages,  silver  plate,  cashmere  shawls,  Brussels 
carpets,  silk  wardrobes,  and  all  that  was  known,  to  assail  the 
avarice  of  the  corrupt,  or  allure  the  weakness  of  the  vain. 

Every  officer  used  his  office  as  a  source  of  profit  to  himself,  to 
be  divided  with  the  officer  immediately  above  him  at  the  ex 
pense  of  the  people,  the  amount  of  which  was  never  known 
until  it  was  sunk  in  the  general  bankruptcy  of  the  public  debt, 
and  reappeared  in  the  funding  system. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  name  was  prominent  in  cotton  speculation ;'  in 
deed,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  engage  in  giving  passes  to  trade  with 
the  enemy  to  friends,  including  relatives  of  members  of  the 
Cabinet.  In  one  case,  the  father  of  Gen.  Grant  claimed  a  com- 
11 


162  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

mission  upon  cotton,  bought  under  a  pass  from  his  son,  which 
even  a  venal  judge  felt  constrained  to  denounce  in  court  as  shame 
ful. 

The  court  of  Lincoln  to  all  of  its  excesses,  profligacies  and 
corruption,  added  venality  and  penuriousness.  During  his  life 
time,  Lincoln  made  a  handsome  fortune,  to  say  nothing  of  those 
unsettled  accounts  with  public  officers,  which  death  closed  to  their 
benefit  and  the  loss  of  his  estate,  which  his  relict  is  now  vainly 
endeavoring  to  collect.  At  his  death,  perhaps,  the  smallest  crime 
committed  against  decency,  was  the  entire  removal  of  all  the 
valuable  property  of  the  Presidential  mansion  by  his  widow. 
But  she  is  a  woman,  and  we  forbear  comment. 

In  all  history,  wars  are  accounted  the  greatest  human  calamity 
that  the  angry  God  can  inflict  upon  a  wicked  people.  Wars  are 
always  unjust  and  unequal  in  their  bearing  upon  society.  The 
late  war  was  especially  so.  It  grew  out  of  a  controversy  con 
cerning  the  government,  which  the  masses  of  the  people  did  not 
well  understand.  They  had  no  opportunity  to  examine  and  no 
time  to  devote  to  them. 

These  controversies  involved  the  pride,  ambition  and  persona? 
interest  of  military  and  political  leaders,  who  had  scarcely  any 
thing  in  common  with  the  people. 

The  whole  controversy  might  have  been  amicably  settled  to 
the  advantage  of  everybody 

There  was  a  savage  joy  glowing  in  the  countenance  of  every 
fanatic  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this 
book  to  examine  any  mere  details  of  battles,  but  rather  to  pre 
sent  the  condition  of  the  public  mind  under  the  influence  of  the 
usurpation. 

It  was  an  exceedingly  brilliant  Sabbath  morning  when  the 
two  armies  of  American  brothers  met  in  the  sanguinary  struggle 
of  death,  common  disgrace  and  destruction. 

To  the  Congress,  the  occasion  seemed  a  holiday ;  and  the  com 
batants  excited  in  the  Congress  the  same  feeling  usually  aroused 
in  the  most  profligate  of  spectators,  of  cock-fighting,  bull-bait 
ing,  and  the  gladiatorial  scenes  of  the  Romans.  The  churches 
opened  their  morning  service  by  the  ringing  of  bells  and  the 
playing  of  organs.  Only  the  women  and  children  were  present; 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  163 

the  minister,  as  he  passed  the  streets,  met  horses,  buggies, 
barouches,  stages,  omnibuses,  and  carriages  of  every  description, 
loaded  down  with  wines,  brandies,  whiskey,  ales,  beer,  and  every 
variety  of  drink.  Members  of  Congress,  Ministers  of  States, 
blooming  cyprians  and  professional  thieves,  strangely  commingled, 
went  yelling  and  singing  merrily  on  their  way.  Wagon  loads 
of  handcuffs  were  prepared  for  the  arrest  and  confinement  of  the 
enemy's  prisoners.  Billiard-tables,  backgammon  boards,  decks 
of  cards  and  boxes  of  dice,  were  provided  for  the  pastime  and 
amusement  of  the  army  followers. 

Congress  had  adjourned  for  the  purpose  of  feasting  their  eyes 
upon  the  harrowing,  bloody  sights  of  the  battle-field,  and  charm 
ing  their  ears  with  martial  music  which  would  drown  the  cries 
of  the  terrified,  the  groans  of  the  dying,  and  shrieks  of  the 
wounded. 

Except  in  the  magnificence  of  numbers,  everything  upon  this 
holy  Sabbath  reminds  one  of  the  great  army  of  Xerxes.  Volup 
tuousness  and  pride,  luxury  and  licentiousness,  extravagance, 
frivolity  and  crime,  ran  wild  together.  The  whole  city  of  Wash 
ington  was  drunk  on  liquors,  abandoned  to  lust,  and  thirsting 
for  blood. 

The  evening  scene  can  never  be  described.  The  return  of  the 
spectators  and  soldiers  together,  was  the  most  highly-wrought 
picture  of  a  living  mutiny  of  soldiers,  rout  of  armies,  fright  of 
teamsters,  and  frenzy  of  camp-followers.  Wagons  were  deserted, 
carriages  broken,  forage  overturned  in  the  road,  provisions  scat 
tered  in  the  streets,  soldiers  running  away  from  the  officers,  and 
officers  running  away  from  the  army. 

Ministers  of  religion,  like  poor  Lovejoy  and  Gurley,  running 
for  life;  senators  fleeing  in  advance  of  the  t soldiers,  knocking 
them  off  of  their  vehicles,  and  describing  them  as  "  poor  brutes, 
and  miserable  wretches,''  struggling  with  each  other  for  means 
to  fly  in  the  general  escapade. 

Members  of  Congress  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  and 
were  retained  as  prisoners.  Running  in  confusion,  the  whole 
vagrant,  panic-stricken  mass  of  distracted  rabble  reached  Wash 
ington,  where,  for  five  years,  every  vice  had  unlicensed  reign, 
and  every  indulgence  became  morbid  and  abominable. 


164  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

The  Congress  were  passing  laws  against  polygamy,  when 
Stevens  jocosely,  yet  truly  observed,  that  some  of  them  had  their 
wives  in  Washington  and  their  mistresses  at  home;  whilst  others 
had  their  mistresses  in  Washington  and  their  wives  at  home. 

To  conciliate  temperance  demands,  drunken  members  enacted 
whiskey  excises,  and  grew  rich  upon  the  profits. 

Since  the  fall  of  Babylon  no  such  corruption,  depravity  and 
crime  ever  scandalized  any  city  or  country,  as  the  gathered  con 
tractors,  spies,  pimps,  thieves,  office-hunters,  office-holders,  spec 
ulators,  stock-gamblers,  peculators  and  prostitutes  of  Washing 
ton  city. 

The  Congress  corrupted  the  army,  and  the  army  overawed 
Congress.  Military  officers  used  their  place  as  a  stepping-stone 
to  Congress,  and  Congress  employed  their  offices  to  secure  con 
tracts. 

Men  charged  with  bribery,  like  Cameron,  were  appointed  to 
cabinet  places.  When  the  Congress  charged  him  with  corrup 
tion  in  the  cabinet,  the  President  sent  him  upon  a  foreign  mis 
sion.  When  he  returned  home,  he  bought  his  way  into  the 
Senate.  When  the  legislature  was  charged  with  bribery,  the 
very  body  accused  of  the  crime  were  appointed  a  committee  to 
examine  into  the  charge,  and  reported  themselves  innocent. 
Stevens  said  of  Cameron  to  Lincoln,  that  "  he  might  be  safely 
trusted  with  a  furnace  of  red  hot  stoves." 

To  this  corruption,  pervading  a  whole  administration,  was 
added  revelry,  feastings,  and  such  riotous  living  as  had  never 
been  introduced  before  in  the  Presidential  mansion. 

All  the  eariy  Presilents  and  their  families  were  of  high 
social  position,  but  it  was  the  dignity  of  enlightened  gentlemen 
and  ladies,  seasoned  with  the  solemnity  of  position.  Things 
were  now  entirely  changed. 

Upon  one  occasion,  the  favorite  child  of  the  President  was  ly 
ing  in  the  very  jaws  of  death ;  the  physician  was  carefully 
counting  the  sinking  pulsations  in  his  little  arm,  and  dared  not 
leave  his  bedside.  The  whole  land  was  in  mourning ;  thousands 
of  brave  men  were  slowly  perishing,  others  were  dying  with  their 
wounds,  or  lay  slaughtered  on  the  battle-field.  The  scene  of 
desolation  in  the  South  was  appalling ;  the  suffering  in  the  North 


CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR.  165 

was  pitiable.  But  death  presented  no  obstacle  to  this  Presiden 
tial  revelry.  As  the  groans  of  the  wounded  soldiers  were  hushed 
by  the  thundering  cannon  and  deafening  drum,  the  expiring 
groans  of  the  dying  child  were  drowned  in  the  tones  of  the  Bac 
chanalian's  songs,  and  the  revelry  of  the  small  hours  of  the 
night. 

These  effeminate  corruptions  in  the  society  of  the  newly  es 
tablished  nation,  extended  in  the  most  alarming  violence  to  the 
extremities  of  the  land. 

Citizens  were  banished  for  defending  the  Constitution.  This 
was  commenced  in  Burnside's  drunken  campaign  in  the  State  of 
Ohio,  in  1863. 

A  defeated,  disgraced  and  impotent  general  officer  of  the  army 
of  the  United  States,  in  violation  of  law,  was  appointed  military 
satrap  of  Ohio. 

Fresh  from  the  bloody,  inglorious  and  horrible  battle-fields  of 
Virginia,  where  all  his  forrnsr  follies,  frailties  and  disasters 
ripened  and  concentrated  in  the  overwhelming  defeat,  rout  and 
slaughter  of  brave  soldiers,  led  into  the  man-trap  and  deadfall  by 
his  imbecility,  which  will  forever  doom  the  connection  of  the 
unfortunate  field  with  his  infamous  name  as  the  butcher  of 
Fredericksburg.  This  man  came  clothed  with  arbitrary  power, 
to  rule  the  State  and  destroy  the  people. 

He  entered  upon  his  duties  prompted  by  the  worst  advisers 
that  ever  ruined  a  reckless  man,  and  amused  his  Bacchanalian 
associates,  surrounded  by  their  harems  of  cyprians,  with  dis 
gusting  braggadocia,  to  frighten  the  unarmed  citizens  whose  lives 
were  at  his  mercy. 

Within  speaking  distance  of  where  I  now  write,  he  assembled 
a  military  commission  to  destroy  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  re- 
\iowned  citizens  of  Ohio,  and  by  this  persecution  indissolubly 
connected  his  name  with  civil  liberty,  and  endeared  it  to  man 
kind. 

This  military  commission  was  conducted  by  one  DeCourcy,  an 
unnaturalized  British  mercenary.  The  Judge  Advocate,  Cutts, 
of  this  insolent  usurpation,  was  subsequently  convicted  by  court- 
martial  for  playing  bopeep  through  a  lady's  transom,  but  was 
retained  with  his  rank  as  quite  a  proper  person  for  the  espionage 


166  CHIMES   OF  1  HE   CIVIL   WAK. 

branch  of  the  public  service.  The  history  is  before  you,  and 
forbids  amplification.  These  men,  led  by  the  tool  Burnside, 
committed  a  crime  against  liberty  which  invoked  the  just  resist 
ance  of  the  people. 

A  corrupt  and  cringing  Governor,  who  had  bartered  his  prin 
ciples  for  position,  abandoned  the  rights  of  the  people  and  ab 
jured  the  sovereignty  of  the  State  for  the  patronage  of  the 
general  Government,  exchanged  the  proud  position  of  Governor 
of  a  free  State  for  the  cringing  tool  of  the  central  tyrant. 

After  banishment,  then  came  arbitrary  arrests  everywhere. 

The  lash  was  employed  upon  enlisted  soldiers  without  trial. 
One  case  occurred  in  the  city  of  Pittsburg,  with  aggravated  cruelty; 
they  afterwards  became  common.  The  torture  was  revived  to 
extort  confessions.  All  the  abandoned  cruelties  of  the  mediaeval 
ages,  were  instituted  as  wonderful  discoveries  and  progress.  But 
in  no  place  was  the  cruelty  and  recklessness  of  human  life  so 
manifest  as  in  the  treatment  of  prisoners,  which  was  the  most 
horrible  feature  of  the  war. 

The  process  was  so  atrocious,  cruel-infernal  in  its  detail,  that  it 
startles  the  belief  of  a  Christian  age. 

The  first  step  was  to  destroy  the  country  —  and  women  and 
children  were  driven  to  destitution,  which  led  to  a  second  crime 
against  decency,  humanity  and  nature  itself;  droves  of  women 
were  sent  hundreds  of  miles  from  home,  under  the  pretext  that 
there  was  nothing  left  for  them  to  subsist  upon  in  their  own 
country.  Desolation  and  ruin  befel  these  unprotected  strangers 
in  an  enemies7  land. 

The  desolation  of  the  land  also  stinted  the  rations  of  the  sol 
diers,  until  their  destitution  was  extreme. 

There  was  such  a  great  scarcity  of  food  in  the  Confederate 
States  for  the  people,  that  the  soldiers  were  unable  to  feed  or 
care  for  the  prisoners  who  fell  into  their  hands ;  so  that  healthy 
prison-life  became  impossible. 

Second.  Medicines  were  indiscriminately  destroyed  with  burn 
ing  cities,  villages  and  stores;  and  remedies  were  not  permitted 
to  be  borne  to  the  sick  and  suffering.  Drug  stores  were  given 
to  the  flames,  and  many  were  executed  as  spies  for  carrying  medi 
cines  upon  their  persons,  to  save  the  lives  of  their  sick  families. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  167 

A  lady  going  South,  was  stripped  and  examined  by  the  wives 
of  two  Senators,  who  took  from  her  a  few  grains  of  quinine 
which  she  had  saved  for  her  dying  child,  although  one  of  these 
women  had  only  lately  buried  her  own  child.  The  good  sense 
of  the  commander  restored  the  medicine  to  the  lady. 

Third.  The  government  of  the  United  States  refused  to  ex 
change  prisoners,  and  offered  as  apology,  that  it  could  not  afford 
to  exchange  men  in  health  for  sick  men. 

In  many  cases,  the  treatment  of  prisoners  was  atrocious.  In 
Camp  Douglas  the  prisoners  froze  their  feet ;  were  guarded  and 
shot  at  by  Indians;  shot  at  by  the  guards;  punished  with  a 
coarse,  shocking  cruelty  for  trivial  offences.  In  other  cases,  the 
prisoners  bought  themselves  out  with  money;  were  reported 
dead,  and  their  burial  expenses  paid.  And  it  were  difficult  to 
determine  whether  avarice  or  malice  were  the  ruling  spirit  of  the 
prison. 

In  Camp  Chase,  the  privation,  suffering  and  torture  were  ex 
treme  ;  at  Fort  Delaware,  Johnson's  Island  and  Rock  Island, 
the  cruelty  was  of  the  Esquimaux  type.  In  all  of  these  prisons, 
the  stinting  and  sickening  mixtures  of  food  was  even  more  de 
structive  of  life  than  the  battle-field. 

The  Federal  reports  show  that  a  larger  proportion  of  Confed 
erate  prisoners  died  in  Federal  prisons  than  of  Federals  in  rebel 
prisons. 

Contemplating  the  crimes,  cruelties  and  sufferings,  in  the 
United  States,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  under  a  Christian  dis 
pensation,  perpetrated  by  Christians,  the  soul  sinks  in  agony 
at  the  sad  and  gloomy  spectacle. 

The  tortures  were  gross  and  fiendish.  When  Dr.  William  A. 
Howies,  an  old  soldier  of  the  Mexican  war,  and  Mr.  Milligan, 
an  eminent  lawyer  of  Indiana,  were,  by  a  mock  military  court, 
condemned,  it  was  arranged  to  take  these  aged  gentlemen  out 
upon  the  scaffold,  put  the  ropes  around  their  necks,  and  offer 
public  taunts  and  gibes,  and  then  return  them  to  the  State's  Prison. 
During  the  confinement  in  the  Ohio  penitentiary,  Mr.  Milligan, 
who  was  not  a  physician,  was  forced  to  extract  teeth,  and  in  one 
case,  fractured  a  jaw-bone  in  the  attempt.  Is  it  possible  that  the 
people  of  Ohio  know  the  outrages  practiced  upon  these  gentle- 


168  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

men  ?  who,  in  family,  breeding,  intelligence  and  general  charac 
ter,  were  greatly  the  superior  of  any  of  the  State  officers  who  super 
vised  their  incarceration.  Dr.  Olds  was  denied  the  Bible  and 
robbed  of  his  medicines  in  prison,  by  the  keeper. 

In  passing  Mr.  Vallandigham  through  the  lines,  an  attempt 
was  made  by  an  officer  to  excite  the  soldiers  to  violence;  failing 
in  the  attempt,  the  officer  boasted  that  he  had  saved  the  life  of 
Mr.  Vallandigham.  This  officer  has  been  a  minister,  a  colonel 
and  member  of  Congress,  and  out  of  very  shame,  his  vanity 
shall  not  be  gratified  by  giving  his  name  in  this  book. 

Such  was  the  reigning  crime  and  cruelty  in  the  New  Nation. 

Families  were  turned  out-doors  to  provide  for  the  traveling 
harlots  of  military  officers.  The  property  of  everybody  was 
appropriated  at  will  by  these  guardians  of  the  new  nation,  who 
came  to  "protect "  the  people. 

The  evil  day  came  and  the  years  drew  nigh,  when  the  tyrant 
found  no  pleasure  in  them. 

Good  Friday  was  the  sad  day  of  the  crucifixion  of  the  blessed 
Son  of  Mary ;  on  that  day  the  heavens  wore  their  black  and 
gloomy  garments;  the  sun  refused  to  shine;  the  veil  of  the 
Temple  was  rent. 

The  God-like  head  of  Jesus  was  crowned  with  thorns.  The 
purest  of  all  that  was  born  of  a  woman,  He  was  condemned  to 
die  between  two  thieves.  The  kindest  of  all  that  wore  the  hu 
man  form,  He  died  of  the  most  excruciating  torture ;  the  love 
liest  of  all  who  lived,  He  was  followed  with  the  most  malig 
nant  hate.  They  smote  Him,  spit  upon  Him,  buffetted  Him, 
drove  nails  in  His  hands  and  feet,  thrust  a  spear  into  His  body. 

He  in  whose  tongue  there  was  no  guile,  was  taunted,  reviled, 
insulted. 

He  who  was  the  exhaustless  fountain  of  life,  died  that  we  might 
live. 

Such  were  the  themes  and  associations  of  this  blessed  day. 

To  the  Christian  it  was  a  day  of  fasting,  of  solemn  recollection 
of  the  pangs  of  the  crucifixion. 

For  more  than  eighteen  centuries  had  this  holy  day  been  held 
in  solemn  reverence.  As  far  as  the  compass  had  directed  th'e 
vessel  that  ploughed  the  main  to  distant  lands,  had  this  day  been 


CHIMES   OP   THE   CIVIL    WAE.  169 

kept  sacred  on  the  ocean.  And  wide  as  the  circuit  of  the  sun 
had  Christians  honored  the  custom,  and  abased  themselves 
before  heaven  in  vindication  of  their  sorrow  and  their  shame  for 
the  crimes  of  a  guilty  world. 

Tolling  bells  and  mournful  chants,  robes  of  black  and  dar 
kened  windows,  were  signals  of  the  deep  feelings  of  distress 
which  each  returning  anniversary  brought  back  to  the  Christian 
mind. 

But  America  was  already  in  mourning.  Every  household 
had  yielded  its  first-born  to  the  battle-field.  Lincoln  had  filled 
a  new  graveyard  in  every  neighborhood,  whose  white  monuments 
were  reared  to  commemorate  his  bloody  reign. 

Wives  whose  husbands  had  been  slain  on  distant  fields  of 
carnage,  died  in  prison,  or  had  been  shot  clown  like  brutes,  were 
huddling  their  little  ones  around  their  meagre  fires,  or  wasting 
their  feeble  strength  in  gathering  food,  or  weeping  over  the  ab 
sent  father. 

Children,  penniless  and  lonely,  were  going  to  and  fro  in  search 
of  shelter. 

Old  people  whose  darling  sons,  the  last  remaining  hope  of  life, 
had  been  hurried  to  the  grave,  sat  disconsolate  in  their  ruined 
homes. 

Hundreds  of  thousands  homeless,  turned  away  from  the  ashes 
of  their  dwellings,  were  mourning  in  the  land  ;  half  a  continent 
was  in  ruins ;  trade  destroyed ;  commerce  broken  up ;  private 
intercourse  interrupted  in  every  community. 

At  every  cross-road  and  corner  of  the  street,  armless  sleeves 
were  falling  by  the  side  of  stalwart  frames ;  young  men  hobbling 
on  crutches;  hospitals  filled  with  the  sick,  whose  pitiful  eyes 
were  staring  into  the  grave ;  and  ambulances  loaded  down  with 
the  wounded,  whose  dying  shrieks  rent  the  air. 

The  pitiless  hand  of  an  angry  God  left  nothing  undone  which 
could  afflict  the  people.  Our  cup  of  sorrow  was  full. 

Good  Friday  was  opportune  for  our  worship,  our  sufferings, 
and  our  sorrow. 

Scarcely  had  the  light  of  the  sun  closed  in  upon  the  evening, 
until  the  White  House  was  filled  with  its  usual  revelry,  and  the 
President  and  family,  passing  chapels,  churches  and  cathedrals, 


170  CRIMES   OP   THE   CIVIL    WAE. 

entered  the  fashionable  resort  of  a  licentious  city.  His  box  wag 
opened  and  closed.  The  house  was  filled  to  its  utmost  capacity. 
A  low,  coarse  play,  "  Oar  American  Cousin,"  was  to  be  re 
peated,  to  pander  to  the  tastes  of  the  imperial  visitors.  Shak- 
speare,  Addison,  Sheridan  or  Ben  Johnson,  were  too  stale  for 
the  royalty  of  the  New  Nation. 

This  was  a  gala  day,  and  the  theatre  was  chosen  as  a  fitting 
place  to  obliviate  all  the  recollections  of  Calvary,  ail  of  the 
sufferings  of  the  poor,  the  woes  of  the  victims  of  carnage  and 
incendiary  desolation.  The  cries  of  the  suffering  were  lost  in 
the  glee  of  merriment. 

Never  before  was  crowd  so  jubilant.  There  were  newly  made 
officers,  promoted  from  gambling  hells  and  lower  sinks  of  vice; 
contractors  grown  rich  of  robbery ;  fashionable  women  who  had 
emerged  from  low  estate,  and  brought  everything  with  them  to 
their  new  positions,  but  their  virtue.  Never  was  dress  so  gay,  or 
apparel  so  brilliant.  All  of  the  silks,  jewelry  and  diamonds, 
economized  by  the  labor  of  centuries  in  the  South,  had  been 
pillaged  of  the  people  and  distributed  in  the  armies ;  but  the 
army  was  in  the  theatres,  —  bracelets,  rings,  chains,  keys,  watches, 
silks,  cashmeres,  robes,  —  everything  seemed  studded  with  dia 
monds,  burning  with  lustre. 

But  when  the  dazzling  light  shone  down  in  effulgence  from  the 
mammoth  chandeliers,  the  scene  was  thrilling. 

Down  low  in  the  pit  were  the  torch-men,  fresh  from  the 
field  of  plunder  in  Georgia,  who  had  walked  for  months  upon  the 
ashes  of  burning  plantations.  The  teamsters  had  wantonly 
shot  down  herds  of  all  the  domestic  animals,  to  starve  the  people. 
These  were  the  officers  who  led  them,  inflamed  with  lust  and 
drunken  on  blood.  Around  them  were  the  abandoned  women 
who  shared  their  plunder,  arrayed  in  the  costume  of  ladies  whose 
stolen  garments  they  wore.  Thieves  and  pickpockets,  stock 
gamblers  and  poker-players,  in  one  motley  gang,  were  all  doing 
homage  to  the  usurper  of  the  New  Nation. 

The  players  were  preparing  to  feed  the  ear  with  brilliant  levity, 
as  the  eye  was  feasted  with  the  scenes  around. 

Just  at  this  moment  stepped  upon  the  stage  a  lithe,  strong, 
beautiful  form.  His  broad,  pale  forehead  stood  out  from  a  rich 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE.  171 

crest  of  coal  black  hair  that  fell  in  luxuriance  around  his  neck. 
This  personage  was  mysterious  and  historic.  He  bore  the  name 
of  a  proud  Englishman,  in  whose  person  English  liberty  had 
been  outraged  and  vindicated.  His  father  wore  the  name  of 
that  great  Roman  tyrant's  slayer,  Brutus.  He  had  been 
a  dramatist  by  profession  and  inheritance,  who  learned  his  plays 
and  felt  them  as  he  spoke  them.  With  him  the  drama  was 
a  thing  of  life  and  thus  he  acted ;  it  was  life  itself  which 
seemed  the  jest.  He  loved  his  father,  and  he  believed  the  doc 
trines  of  his  plays.  He  looked  around  him  and  saw  a  nation 
sunken  in  slavery ;  the  poor  butchered,  the  rich  revelling ;  the 
brave  crushed  out,  sycophants  exalted ;  flatterers  growing  rich ; 
thieves  rioting  in  wealth ;  brave,  honest  men  pining  in  prison, 
or  seeking  shelter  under  the  shadow  of  foreign  thrones ;  and  no 
man  dared  raise  his  voice  against  these  crimes.  With  his  single 
accomplice,  Powell,  without  suggestion,  he  conceived  the  tragedy 
and  turned  toward  the  mock  royal  box.  His  eyes,  like  bursting 
balls  of  fire,  fell  full  upon  the  object  of  his  rage;  he  fired  his 
pistol,  his  victim  fell  lifeless,  and  spoke  no  word  to  be  remem 
bered.  Booth  leaped  upon  the  stage,  crying  "sic  semper  ty- 
rannis." 

Lincoln  has  been  compared  to  Washington;  herein  they 
differed. 

Washington  was  modest,  reticent,  dfgnified;  Lincoln  was 
familiar,  garrulous  and  clownish. 

Washington  Avas  wise,  sincere  and  determined. 

Lincoln  was  cunning,  treacherous  and  fickle. 

Washington  refused  presents,  pay  for  his  services,  and  emolu 
ments  for  his  sacrifices. 

Lincoln  kept  each  member  of  his  family  as  beggars  for  pres 
ents,  silent  partners  in  contracts,  and  grew  wealthy  from  the 
spoils  of  office. 

Washington  established  constitutional  liberty  among  men, 
upon  the  sure  foundations  of  law. 

Lincoln  tore  up  that  very  Constitution,  and  set  up  his  arbitrary 
will  instead. 

Washington  was  religiously  careful  in  the  selection  of  the 
ablest,  purest  men  of  the  country  to  administer  the  government; 


172  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

choosing  those  who  differed  with  him  in  opinion,  for  the  good  of 
the  country. 

Lincoln  selected  the  weakest,  worst  and  most  corrupt  men  of 
the  country,  because  they  agreed  with  him  in  opinion,  and  served 
him  cheerfully  as  instruments  of  usurpation. 

Washington  moulded  chaos  into  order,  stability  and  legitimate 
government. 

Lincoln  dissolved  the  government,  and  left  the  country  in  an 
archy. 

Washington  received  the  spontaneous  devotion  of  his  country 
men  through  the  press  which  he  had  made  free,  and  the  people 
who  were  secure  in  their  liberty. 

Lincoln  enforced  the  most  extravagant  adulation  from  his  own 
hired  presses,  his  officers  who  were  plundering  the  country,  and 
the  pulpit  bribed  to  chant  his  praises. 

Washington  went  to  every  part  of  the  land,  unattended  by 
military  array,  except  those  crowds  of  old  volunteers  of  liberty, 
who  came  to  pay  their  respect  to  his  person,  and  congratulate  the 
country  upon  the  success  of  constitutional  government.  Women, 
with  woven  garlands,  met  him  wherever  he  went.  Beautiful 
maidens  and  sweet  little  children,  strewed  his  walks  with  flow 
ers. 

From  the  day  of  the  inauguration  to  the  hour  of  his  tragical 
death,  Lincoln  was  never  out  of  the  reach  of  the  sound  of  artil 
lery  ;  was  surrounded  by  soldiers  to  guard  his  person ;  flatterers 
and  courtiers  to  corrupt  his  heart ;  and  female  sycophants  beg 
ging  favors,  dispensing  praises,  and  making  merry  in  his  court. 

After  his  term  of  office,  Washington  retired  to  his  farm,  to 
open  the  hospitable  door  of  his  mansion  to  his  old  confreres  in 
arms,  and  entertain  visitors  who  sought  his  company  to  learn 
more  of  manly  liberty.  In  the  strength  of  his  mind  and  the 
vigor  of  a  green  old  age,  surrounded  by  friends  who  loved  him, 
he  surrendered  his  soul  to  God,  to  be  mourned  by  his  country 
men  and  honored  by  mankind.  Lincoln  closed  his  life  as  stated 
above. 

There  was  a  singular  resemblance  between  Claudius  Nero, 
and  Abraham  Lincoln, 

In  early  life,  Nero  was  remarkable  for  his  jovial  habit  of  illus 
tration. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR.  173 

Lincoln's  whole  field  of  logic,  illustration,  ridicule  and  satire, 
was  anecdote  and  stories. 

Nero  proposed  many  reforms  under  Seneca  and  Burrhus,  and 
grew  in  popularity  among  the  people,  until  he  was  accounted  a 
god. 

Lincoln  commenced  his  administration  as  a  benevolent  re 
former,  under  the  auspices  of  all  the  reformers  of  the  country. 

Nero's  subjects  rebelled  against  his  usurpation.  Lincoln's  sub 
jects  anticipated  his  usurpation.  Such  rulers  always  create  re 
bellions  and  excite  resistance. 

Nero  played  the  drama  of  the  destruction  of  Troy,  during  the 
seven  days'  burning  of  Rome. 

Lincoln  attended  balls  and  engaged  in  festivities  during  the 
five  years'  conflagration  of  the  country,  and  the  wanton,  bloody 
slaughter  of  his  countrymen ;  and  had  vile  songs  sung  among 
his  dying  armies. 

Nero  rebuilt  Rome  at  his  own  expense,  by  extortion  and  rob 
bery,  and  the  tyrant  was  liberal  to  the  suiferers.  In  this  Nero 
excelled  Lincoln,  who  repaired  no  damages  of  burning  cities. 

Nero  threw  prisoners  to  wild  beasts ;  Lincoln  kept  prisoners 
confined  in  cold  prisons,  where  their  limbs  were  frozen ;  in  filthy 
prisons  where  they  were  eaten  up  with  vermin ;  starved  them 
until  they  died  of  scurvy  and  other  loathesome  diseases,  after 
months  of  terror,  torture  and  cruelty. 

Nero  put  Christians  to  death  under  false  pretence,  to  gratify 
the  worshippers  of  the  Pantheon. 

Lincoln  corrupted  one  part  of  the  Church  to  engage  in  war 
fare  with  the  other  part,  and  burned  twelve  hundred  houses  of 
worship;  mutilated  grave-yards;  and  left  whole  cities,  churches 
and  all  in  ashes ;  dragged  ministers  from  their  knees  in  the  very 
act  of  worship ;  tied  them  up  by  their  thumbs ;  had  their 
daughters  stripped  naked  by  negro  soldiers,  under  the  command 
of  white  officers. 

Suetonius,  under  Nero,  butchered  eighty  thousand  Britons, 
defended  by  Queen  Boadicea.  His  officers  flogged  Boadicea  and 
ravished  her  daughters ;  and  lost  thousands  of  Romans  in  the 
attempt  to  subdue  the  Britons,  who  were  defending  their  homes, 
altars  and  grave-yards. 


174  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Lincoln  let  loose  Turchin  to  ravish  the  women  of  Athens, 
Alabama;  Banks  and  Butler  to  rob  New  Orleans;  Sheridan  to 
burn  up  Virginia ;  Sherman  to  ravage  the  South  with  desolating 
fires ;  Payne  and  Burbridge  to  murder  in  Kentucky ;  Neil, 
Strachan  and  the  vagabond  thieves,  to  murder,  rob  and  destroy 
Missouri,  until  one  million  of  his  murdered  countrymen  butch 
ered  each  other  by  his  command.  Every  department  of  Nero's 
government  was  signalized  by  licentiousness  and  debauchery, 
nameless  and  loath esome. 

Lincoln's  court  was  the  resort  of  debauchees ;  the  Treasury 
Department  was  a  harem ;  the  public  officers  were  one  great  un 
restrained  multitude  who  yielded  to  the  coarsest  appetites  of 
nature,  stimulated  by  strong  drinks  and  inflamed  by  the  indul 
gence  of  every  other  vice. 

In  this  did  Nero,  to  his  credit,  diifer  from  Lincoln.  The 
generals  of  Nero  respected  the  works  of  arts,  the  paintings, 
poems  and  manuscripts  of  the  learned,  and  the  discoveries  of 
genius. 

Upon  the  other  hand,  Lincoln  destroyed  everything  that  indi 
cated  superior  civilization.  In  one  instance,  a  general  officer  of 
scientific  pretension,  arrayed  his  daughter  in  the  stolen  garments 
of  the  wife  of  C.  C.  Clay,  an  old  Senator  of  Alabama.  During 
the  invasion  of  Huntsville,  Mr.  Clay's  house  was  robbed  of  its 
jewelry,  the  heir-looms  of  three  generations,  taken  against  the 
tearful  prayers  of  his  black  servant.  The  exquisitely  beautiful 
statue  of  his  dead  babe,  was  ground  to  powder  before  his  eyes.  An 
appeal  to  Lincoln's  men,  that  any  object  was  of  scientific  value, 
only  hastened  its  destruction ;  his  wars  were  directed  against 
civilization. 

Nero  fled  before  the  judgment  of  the  Senate,  and  died  by  his 
own  hand.  Lincoln  could  not  have  survived  his  crimes,  so  un 
relenting  is  the  retributive  justice  of  God. 


CRIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR,  175 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

INFIDELITY  OF  THE  CLERGY. 

THE  SUPREMACY  OF  GOD  IS  THE  CARDINAL  DOCTRINE  OP 
MODERN  CIVILIZATION. 

God  is  just,  wise,  good,  merciful,  kind,  intelligent,  reasonable 
and  supreme. 

In  our  consideration  of  the  supremacy  of  God,  we  must  clear 
ly  distinguish  between  what  is  human  and  what  is  divine. 

Truth  is  of  God ;  sectaires  are  of  men  purely  ;  worship  is  due 
to  God ;  but  its  manner  is  entirely  human.  The  gospel  is  of 
Christ  and  consistent  with  itself.  Churches  are  of  men,  and  in 
most  unhappy  conflict  with  each  other.  The  great  universe  is  the 
temple  of  the  omnipotent,  omnipresent,  ever-living  God ;  it  is  that 
great  Church  in  which  Jew  and  Gentile,  Catholic  and  Protestant 
may  look  up  through  nature  to  her  great  architect,  and  live  and 
learn  forever  more.  Presbyteries,  conferences,  associations,  con 
ventions  and  synods,  are  the  local  and  sectarized  assemblies  in 
which  mere  men  circumscribe  that  broad,  deep,  high  and  holy 
worship  of  the  living  God,  which  was,  in  the  beginning,  wide 
as  illimitable  space  and  pure  as  innocence.  Keligion  is  the  sun's 
brightest  shadow  of  the  Deity  imprinted  upon  the  soul,  which, 
when  duly  stamped,  will,  with  glowing  beauty,  shine  'mid  the 
wreck  of  matter  and  the  crush  of  worlds ;  and  when  the  ele 
ments  melt  with  fervent  heat  and  the  fading  light  of  the  solar 
system  has  grown  dim  with  age,  "  will  shine  as  the  brightness  of 
the.  firmament,  and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the 
stars  forever  and  forever." 

A  land  without  God  is,  in  that  hopeless  orphanage,  infinitely 
more  deplorable  than  a  family  bereft  of  its  father.  A  people 
without  a  church,  has  invited  the  departure  of  God  from  their 
midst.  A  church,  without  piety  profanes  God,  by  associating  his 
infinite  perfection  with  the  wickedness  of  men. 


176  CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

The  great  commandments  of  God  are  these:  1.  To  love  God 
with  all  thy  mind  and  all  thy  soul,  and  all  thy  heart  and  all  thy 
strength.  2.  To  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  To  love  God 
is  to  love  his  attributes ;  for  no  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time. 
To  love  God  is  to  love  justice,  to  love  mercy,  to  love  truth,  to 
love  holiness  and  integrity,  to  love  God  is  more;  it  is  to  do  jus 
tice,  love  mercy,  and  walk  humbly  before  Him. 

"  Pure  religion  and  undefiled  before  God  and  the  Father  is 
this :  To  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in  their  affliction, 
and  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the  world."  "  By  this  shall 
all  men  know  that  ye  are  my  disciples ;  that  ye  love  one  an 
other."  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only  begot 
ten  Son,  that  whosoever  believed  in  him,  might  not  perish,  but 
have  everlasting  life." 

To  love  God  is  to  love  peace ;  for  He  is  "  the  God  of  peace." 

The  entrance  of  Jesus  into  the  world  was  heralded  by  mes 
sengers  crying,  "  Peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  man,  glory  to  God 
in  the  highest."  "  Blessed  are  the  peace-makers." 

These  were  the  unchanging  axioms  of  Christianity,  in  vindi 
cation  of  which,  the  Son  of  Mary  offered  up  his  life  in  sacrifice 
for  man. 

The  office  of  the  Christian  ministry  is  the  highest  vocation  of 
life :  the  church  the  most  sacred  repository  of  the  truth  upon 
earth.  These  are  the  earthen  vessels  to  which  God  has  commit 
ted  the  great  treasures  of  life :  the  guardians  of  the  gospel,  the 
trustees  of  our  immortality. 

The  ministers  of  the  New  Testament  baptizes  the  children, 
marry  the  mature,  and  bury  the  dead.  A  faithful  priesthood 
have  limitless  power  over  a  devoted  people,  to  preserve  them 
from  evil,  or  direct  them  to  good.  In  the  United  States,  the 
clergy  were  supported  by  the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  peo 
ple,  and  had  the  utmost  social  power  over  them.  They  taught  the 
schools,  assumed  control  over  all  of  the  charitable  institutions  of 
the  country. 

Before  the  outbreak  of  the  late  civil  war,  it  was  within  THE 

EASY  POWER  OF  THE  CLERGY  TO  HAVE  PREVENTED  IT. 

What  a  magnificent  spectacle  would  it  have  presented  to  the 
wicked  world,  for  the  united  clergy  of  America,  to  wrest  the 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAtt.  177 

sword  from  the  hands  of  the  frenzied  people*  Suppose  every 
minister  had  visited  each  member  of  his  flock,  and  prayed  with 
every  family  in  his  church  for  peace.  Each  conference,  presby 
tery,  synod  and  convention,  had  taught  it  as  the  duty  of  the 
churches  to  preserve  the  priceless  treasure  of  peace. 

Each  sermon  on  the  holy  Sabbath,  had  carefully  abstained 
from  the  subjects  that  irritated  the  public  mind  and  cultivated 
the  social  peace  of  every  community.  Each  denomination  join 
ed  with  the  others  to  cultivate  the  spirit  of  kindness,  the  love  of 
God  and  the  love  of  men,  brotherly  love  and  personal  kindness 
—  and  the  whole  joined  as  the  sacramental  Host  of  God.  All 
of  the  wicked,  designing,  corrupt  and  malicious  men  of  America 
would  have  failed  to  provoke  war  or  disturb  the  quiet  waters  of 
peace.  Suppose,  upon  a  given  day,  the  whole  American  church 
had  joined  in  simultaneous  prayers  to  God,  to  preserve  peace,  to 
restore  quiet,  and  let  a  free  and  enlightened  people  settle  the  dif 
ferences  of  opinion  without  a  conflict  of  arms.  War  never  could 
have  stained  the  pure  escutcheon  of  American  glory ;  or  one- 
half  of  the  land  engage  in  butchering  their  neighbors  of  the 
other  half.  What  stinging  reproach  must  stir  the  souls  of  the 
American  ministry,  who  let  the  happy  moments  pass  in  which 
they  could  have  saved  widowhood  of  its  pangs,  orphanage  of  its 
destitution,  war  of  its  carnage,  plunder  of  its  treasure,  fires  of 
their  fuel,  and  crime  of  its  victims ;  but  they  did  not. 

But  if  the  clergy  had  quietly  left  the  affair  of  the  world  to 
the  care  of  the  world,  and  stood  silently  by,  there  would  have 
been  no  Avar ;  but  this  they  did  not  do. 

The  clergy  of  the  country  inflamed  the  public  passion  until  war 
was  inevitable.  Mr.  Beecher  of  Brooklyn,  gave  his  church  to 
collect  money  to  buy  firearms,  long  before  war  was  believed  in 
evitable  or  thought  possible. 

The  same  crime  was  repeated  in  every  part  of  the  country ; 
and  the  violence,  acrimony  and  passion  of  the  pulpit,  would  have 
created  war  in  any  country. 

In  violation  of  the  law  of  God,  the  churches  went  to  law  with 
each  other  about  questions  purely  ecclesiastical,  that  Christians 
should  have  settled  among  themselves. 
12 


178  CRIMES   OF   THE    CIVIL    WAR. 

The  church  papers  indulged  in  all  of  the  usual  bitterness, 
slander  and  slang  of  the  wicked  world. 

The  churches  were  divided,  one  after  another,  until  the  last  ves 
tige  of  good  feeling  seemed  to  be  determined  by  arbitrary  lines. 

When  war  commenced,  the  ministers  were  recruiting  sergeants, 
and  their  churches  turned  into  military  posts.  The  old  fashion 
ed  "mourners'  bench,"  "anxious  seat"  and  class-meeting  room, 
was  converted  into  recruiting  stalls. 

The  old  Mahommedanism  was  revived,  that  whoever  left  the 
world  for  the  battle-field,  was  saved  without  the  atoning  blood 
of  the  crucifixion ;  and  thousands,  who  had  learned  the  reli 
gion  of  self-denial,  restitution  and  reformation,  repentance,  faith 
and  perfect  love,  sought  immortality  through  the  carnage,  suffer 
ing  and  courage  of  the  battle-field,  where  the  resurrection  would 
know  no  distinction,  except  between  loyalty  and  rebellion;  or 
recognize  any  who  had  not  valiantly  laid  down  their  lives  in  the 
cause  of  the  "  New  Nation."  Every  innovation  by  the  army, 
the  Executive  or  Congress,  was  adopted  as  a  new  canon  of  reli 
gion,  or  a  new  article  of  religious  faith. 

There  seemed  nothing  too  atrocious  for  them  to  press  as  a 
weight  upon  the  Christian  church. 

They  would  adopt  one  horrible  doctrine  after  another,  as  a 
part  of  the  Christian  faith.  When  Lincoln  committed  a  crime, 
the  churches  adopted  it  as  a  virtue.  There  was  not  a  crime  com* 
mitted,  or  a  doctrine  taught  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  the  Stuarts, 
or  Henry  VIII.,  that  has  not,  in  some  form  or  other,  been  re- 
adopted  in  ecclesiastical  platforms.  In  many  parts  of  the  coun 
try,  the  church  took  the  lead  of  the  most  extravagant  dema 
gogues  in  questions  in  no  wise  relevant  to  church  affairs. 

It  is  not  an  unsafe  calculation  that  seven-eights  of  the  minis 
try  of  the  country,  were  infidels  in  faith. 

The  scenes  of  the  conferences  were  more  violent,  virulent  and 
unscrupulous,  than  the  ordinary  political  convention.  Some  of 
the  ministers  preached  sermons  in  favor  of  the  theatre,  because 
Lincoln  had  met  his  death  in  that  place  of  amusement. 

The  Presbyterian  General  Assembly,  which  met  in  St.  Louis, 
was  the  most  violent  deliberative  body  that  ever  met  in  the  coun 
try  in  its  most  violent  times.  "When  the  conference  met  in  the 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  179 

city  of  Springfield,  during  the  last  year  of  the  war,  Governor 
Yates  entered  the  conference  room,  whereupon  that  body  sus 
pended  their  proceedings  to  hear  a  speech  from  his  excellency. 
The  Governor  indulged  in  the  most  exuberant  style  of  profanity, 
which  elicited  the  wildest  applause,  and  was  succeeded  by  scan 
dals  against  the  people,  which  would  not  have  been  tolerated  in 
any  well-regulated  drinking  house.  The  Governor  had  just  re 
turned  from  one  of  his  strolls  in  the  army,  with  a  lieutenant's 
wife,  to  whom  he  had  granted  the  commission  of  major;  which 
called  forth  a  scandalous  correspondence  between  this  woman  and 
a  Senator's  wife,  of  a  character  not  to  be  entertained  in  this  work. 

When  the  war  commenced,  a  new  and  inviting  field  was  open 
ed  for  the  ministry  :  to  each  regiment  was  appointed  a  chaplain, 
and  each  chaplain  received  a  salary  equal  to  a  captain  of  cavalry. 
This  brought  the  whole  ambitious  clergy  into  the  field.  The 
politicians  used  the  clergy  to  raise  a  company,  as  the  price  of 
their  chaplain's  commission.  And  in  this  way  the  minister,  after 
preaching  a  malignant  sermon  to  inflame  his  congregation,  would 
spend  the  week  among  the  poor  people  of  his  flock,  gathering 
up  the  hale,  stalwart  men,  and  bearing  them  to  the  nearest  re 
cruiting  station,  to  be  culled,  examined,  accepted,  or  rejected, 
after  the  manner  of  receiving  horses  from  contractors.  In  this 
way,  many  ministers  sold  out  all  of  the  young  men  of  their  con- 
gregjSion  to  the  provost  marshal. 

5?ne  minister  exhibited  the  greatest  anxiety  for  success ;  very 
much  of  the  same  kind  and  style  that  candidates  for  lieutenant 
and  constable  betray  in  their  contests  for  place. 

Each  neighborhood  Was  scoured  by  the  preacher.  He  prom 
ised  to  each  recruit  an  office,  sometimes  the  same  office  to  half  a 
dozen  persons,  and  each  minister  had  made  the  same  number  of 
promises  to  as  many  different  recruits. 

This  created  dissatisfaction,  distrust,  and  sometimes  actual  con 
flict  between  the  soldiers. 

But  the  contest  between  the  ministers  for  the  chaplain's  place,  was 
intense,  bitter,  and  disgusting.  Denomination,  interest,  favor,  in 
fluence  and  politics,  were  urged,  and  not  unfrequently  the  appoint 
ing  power  would  vascillate,  and  crimination  and  recrimination  fol 
low  the  venal  attempt  to  sell  out  the  business  and  profit  of  the  office. 


180  CRIMES    OF   a  HE   CIVIL    WAR. 

Having  obtained  the  place  in  this  questionable  manner,  the  office 
became  a  disgrace  to  the  army,  and  only  a  few  good  and  faithful 
men  shared  the  toils  of  the  common  soldiers,  and  lived  faithful 
lives.  Those  failing  to  get  chaplains'  commissions  in  the  army, 
sought  chaplains'  positions  in  hospitals:  others  took  up  the 
sword  and  sought  military  office.  These  ministers  carried  all  of 
the  zeal  of  the  pulpit  into  the  neighborhood  broils;  and  were 
prominent  in  mobs,  riots  and  arbitrary  arrests.  You  might  see 
them  strutting  into  the  house  of  God,  with  epaulettes  on  their 
shoulders ;  sitting  in  the  streets  retailing  obscene  stories,  a  la 
Lincoln,  to  the  young  recruits. 

These  military  ministers  went  to  the  army  and  inflamed  the 
new  levies,  so  that  the  old  army  officers  were  unable  to  restrain 
them ;  and  for  hundreds  of  miles  the  army  would  travel  night 
after  night,  by  the  lurid  light  of  burning  plantations.  The  di 
vine  bully  would  superintend  a  street  fight,  or  turn  holy  brigand 
and  drive  some  poor  affrighted  woman  from  her  home.  Such 
was  their  general  deportment  in  the  field.  How  blasphemous 
and  absurd  to  hear  of  a  military  minister  of  the  Gospel. 

St.  Paul  on  a  raid,  John  the  Evangelist  on  a  scout,  Colonel 
John  Wesley,  Major  John  Calvin,  Martin  Luther  quartermas 
ter,  John  Bunyan  wagon-master.  Yet  such  were  the  abominable 
absurdities  practiced  upon  the  people  by  these  hypocritical  pre 
tenders  and  baptized  infidels. 

The  preachers  attended  conventions  and  secured  nominations. 
They  used  the  pulpit  to  get  nominations  in  the  army,  and  used 
the  army  to  get  places  in  the  civil  government,  and  used  their 
places  in  the  civil  government  to  rob  the  government. 

In  the  blood  market  you  would  see  these  representatives  of 
Moses  and  the  prophets,  Christ  and  the  apostles,  engage  as  flesh- 
dealers,  speculating  upon  the  body  and  blood  of  their  neighbors' 
children,  or  selling  the  immortal  souls  of  adults  whom  they  had 
baptized  as  children. 

At  other  times  they  were  taking  advantage  of  personal  friend 
ships  to  persuade  away  the  first-born  child  of  widows'  families. 
After  eating  a  hearty  dinner,  would  speculate  upon  the  child  that 
grew  the  corn  that  fed  them,  and  make  money  off  the  broken 
heart  that  bade  them  welcome  to  her  cottage. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR.  181 

Grave  Bishops  were  sending  telegraphic  congratulations  to  a 
corrupt  Congress  for  establishing  arbitrary  power  in  the  country. 
Other  Bishops  were  traveling  to  Europe  to  hunt  up  mercenary 
tools  of  tyrants  to  join  in  the  general  butchery  of  their  country 
men.  Still  others,  who  were  using  military  force  to  drive  the 
poor  people  from  the  churches  which  had  escaped  the  vandal 
flame,  and  trying  to  steal  what  they  could  not  burn. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  a  picture  of  Paul  following 
the  army  of  Suetonius  into  Britain,  to  steal  the  groves  from  the 
Druids.  But  these  ministers  were  brethren  of  the  same  church, 
of  the  same  faith,  of  the  same  baptism. 

What  a  fearful  crime  has  this  been  against  religion. 

What  can  these  men  say  to  honest  heathen,  who  reproach  the 
Gospel  for  their  crimes  who  teach  religion  ? 

These  men  have  done  lasting  harm  to  God's  poor.  Thousands 
there  are  in  poverty,  distress,  and  who  are  homeless,  who  find 
food,  raiment  and  shelter  in  their  undying  trust  in  Christ  and 
the  Gospel. 

How  infinitely  wicked  those,  who  at  one  fell  swoop,  have  wiped 
away  the  world's  last  hope  by  their  infidelity  and  crime ! 

The  Gospel  of  Christ  is  to  the  poor  a  pillar  of  fire  in  the 
wilderness  of  time ;  a  "  sunbeam  in  the  storm  of  death,"  and 
reveals  a  beacon  on  the  distant  shores  of  that  bourne  whence  no 
traveler  returns. 

How  will  these  ministers  approach  the  savages  of  the  frontier 
with  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  where  the  military  minister,  Chiv- 
ington,  butchered  in  cold  blood,  two  hundred  women  and  child 
ren  in  their  winter  lodges  ?  With  what  fiendish  audacity  must 
that  people  go,  who  call  that  man  brother,  and  offer  the  Gospel 
to  the  Indian. 

In  that  ancient  uncorrupted  faith  of  our  fathers,  who  wor 
shipped  in  groves ;  in  that  simplicity  of  the  Gospel  taught  us  by 
the  simple-minded  children  of  true  religion ;  in  the  consolations 
of  religion  which  are  offered  alike  to  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
learned  and  unlearned ;  in  the  immutable  love  of  God,  we  may 
look  for  consolation  and  comfort,  and  from  these  bloody-minded 
priests,  these  mercenary  ministers,  these  sinister  hypocrites,  these 


182  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAE. 

unbelieving  pretenders,  let  us  turn  away,  to  "  behold  the  Lamb 
of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world." 

To  the  other  ministerial  debasement  was  added  the  crowning 
act  of  religious  prostitution  by  another  Bishop,  who  followed  the 
corpse  of  the  dead  tyrant  through  the  land,  to  teach  young  men 
how  bloody  tyrants  could  ascend  through  theatres  and  crimes  to 
the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

What  a  spectacle  would  that  have  been  to  see  Paul  bearing 
around  the  body  of  dead  Nero  —  sounding  the  praises  of  his 
butcheries,  commending  his  debaucheries,  magnifying  his  mercy, 
and  paying  homage  to  his  love  of  God. 

What  must  have  been  the  transition,  were  it  true,  that  Lincoln 
ascended  on  high. 

Passing  from  the  theatre  to  the  throne  of  God;  from  the  so 
ciety  of  the  voluptuous  multitude  of  criminals  to  the  court  of 
heaven  ;  from  the  crowd  of  thieves  and  cyprians  to  the  white- 
vested  elders  and  the  saints  of  light. 

Such  was  the  blasphemy,  burlesque  and  abomination  over  the 
body  of  Lincoln,  carried  over  the  land  to  excite  the  violence  of 
the  weak  and  wicked,  followed  by  a  frenzied  people. 

Such  has  been  the  conduct  and  infidelity  of  the  American 
clergy  to  the  sacred  trusts  of  Christianity. 

The  worst  of  all  the  infidels  who  took  possession  of  the  church 
was  the  round-head  of  Cromwell.  The  great  criminal  of  Christian 
civilization  —  the  Puritan  —  is  still  the  same  unchanged  and  un 
changeable,  zealous,  treacherous  fiend  that  he  was  before  he  set 
foot  upon  the  continent  of  America.  Not  a  whit  different  in 
purpose,  spirit  and  character,  than  when  he  stood  grinning  with 
infernal  joy  by  the  stake,  throwing  burning  faggots  and  hot 
embers  upon  the  naked  body  of  Michael  Servetus  while  he  was 
writhing  under  the  excruciating  tortures  of  a  slow  fire  fed  by 
green  hickory  wood,  in  the  public  squares  of  Geneva. 

The  Puritan  is  precisely  the  same  amiable  character  that  he 
was,  when  he  hung  Quakers,  burned  witches,  and  drowned  An 
abaptists  ;  when  he  made  merchandize  of  American  institutions, 
and  held  out  blue  lights  to  British  ships,  and  smuggled  British 
goods  through  the  blockade  in  the  interest  of  King  George,  in 
his  second  attempt  to  enslave  the  American  colonies. 


CRIMES    OF   THE    CIVIL    WAR.  183 

Nor  has  he  changed  his  nature  or  abandoned  his  character ; 
since  he  grew  rich  and  made  his  merchants  opulent  in  the  African 
slave  trade. 

His  varied  aggressions  upon  the  rights  of  his  neighbors  change 
only  with  his  means  and  facilities,  and  the  only  hope  which  he 
offers  to  the  world  of  improvement,  is  in  the  introduction  of  a 
system  of  self-destruction,  which  he  has  made  commensurate 
with  his  people,  and  promises  an  early  extermination  of  his  race. 

The  Puritan  who  has  propogated  his  errors  and  begotten  new 
forms  of  religious  crimes,  is  still  encroaching  upon  our  civil 
rights. 

To  prevent  the  union  of  Church  and  State,  with  the  intoler 
ance  of  the  one  and  the  corruption  of  the  other,  to  restore  the 
primitive  simplicity  of  the  Church,  and  the  national  rights  to 
the  people,  the  divorce  of  Church  and  State  must  be  complete. 

In  the  spirit  of  the  fear  of  God,  the  love  of  man  and  the 
truth  of  history,  do  we  warn  our  countrymen  against  these  crimes 
and  dangers  that  environ  us. 


CJLUMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 


CRIMES  AGAINST  LABOR. 

• 
CHAPTER  I. 

THE  CONSPIRACY  OF  THE  TREASURY  DEPARTMENT. 

THE  Treasury  Department  has  always  held  the  first  place  in 
the  governments  of  the  world;  and  is  justly  accounted  equal  to 
the  genius,  cultivation  and  endurance  of  the  ablest  minds. 

The  names  of  Colbert,  Turgott,  Necker,  John  Law,  and  "Wil 
liam  Pitt,  Morris  Hamilton  and  Biddle,  with  the  various  sys 
tems  of  finance,  which  they  represent,  are  so  interwoven  in  the 
history  of  Europe  and  America,  that  their  success  and  failures, 
with  their  causes  and  consequences,  is  a  science  complete  in  it 
self. 

In  the  institution  of  written  government  in  the  United  States, 
the  power  and  resources  of  the  country  to  carry  on  a  successful 
financial  system,  was  not  the  least  hazardous  part  of  the  great 
experiment. 

The  failure  in  the  Treasury  Department  would  have  been  the 
signal  of  anarchy  in  every  branch  of  trade  and  industry. 

Agriculture,  commerce  and  manufactures,  were  alike  depend 
ant  upon  a  just,  thorough  and  stable  system  of  weights,  measures, 
and  moneys  which  would  serve  all  of  the  purposes  of  exchange 
among  themselves,  and  extend  their  business  to  the  different  na 
tions  of  the  earth. 

Our  fathers  were  duly  warned  of  the  dangers  which  threaten 
ed  our  unique  system. 

The  long  catalogue  of  monetary  crimes ;  the  maintenance  of 
aristocracies;  the  slavery  of  labor  to  capital  in  every  govern 
ment  of  Europe,  were  before  them. 

The  Kt'vohitionary  struggle,  which  brought  our  infant  gov- 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  185 

eminent  to  the  light  of  the  world,  witnessed  a  bankruptcy  only 
less  deplorable  than  colonial  dependency ;  and  forced  a  confes 
sion  of  inability  to  pay  the  soldier  who  had  bought  its  liberty 
with  his  blood ;  and  indefinitely  deferred  the  support  of  the 
widows  and  orphans  of  the  brave  men  who  slept  on  the  battle 
field;  and  the  remnant,  maimed  and  wounded,  who  survived 
the  conflict. 

With  this  embarrassing  introduction  into  the  family  of  gov 
ernments,  the  American  people  were  singularly  circumspect  in 
their  choice  of  the  great  men  who  were  appointed  guardians  of 
the  public  wealth. 

The  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  has  contributed  to  the 
literature  of  the  country,  historical  names,  embracing  its  first 
characters,  that  would  have  adorned  the  biographical  annals  of 
any  country ;  whose  preliminary  education  had  qualified  them 
for  the  station  to  which  they  added  lustre. 

The  office  involved  onerous  responsibility ;  required  compre 
hensive  grasp  of  intellect,  and  taxed  to  its  utmost  capacity  the 
richest  genius. 

It  has  been  prudently  offered  and  reluctantly  accepted,  by  the 
most  distinguished  Americans  —  among  whom  were  Hamilton, 
a  jurist,  a  general  and  statesman,  who  had  cultivated  the  gener 
ous  fertility  of  his  native  powers  to  their  highest  susceptibilities 
of  improvement ;  whose  honored  name  comes  down  from  an 
other  century,  with  its  burning  glory  undimmed.  Samuel  Dex 
ter,  a  distinguished  son  of  Massachusetts,  when  she  indulged  in 
a  just  pride  of  her  statesman  ;  Albert  Gallatin,  the  friend  of 
Lafayette,  profoundly  versed  in  the  varied  theories  of  govern 
ment  ;  Richard  Rush,  Louis  McLane,  and  Wm.  H.  Crawford ; 
Roger  B.  Taney,  the  contemporary  and  peer  of  Wirt,  Pinkney, 
Martin,  Webster,  and  Legare.  He  was  the  very  first  of  all  the 
American  jurists,  whose  name  will  pass  down  the  current  of  time 
with  the  history  of  our  jurisprudence,  as  its  purest  and  most  distin 
guished  ornament.  A  proud  and  glorious  hero,  who,  in  the  mid 
night  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  surrounded  by  bayonets, 
deafened  by  cannon  ;  amid  the  sound  of  drums  and  the  shouts  of  the 
rabble;  when  the  judiciary  of  the  country  were  imprisoned,  and 
their  sacred  ermine  trampled  under  the  filthy  feet  of  tyrants  ; 


186  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

when  the  blood  of  murder  bedaubed  the  temple  .of  justice,  and 
violence  held  holiday  in  legislative  halls ;  opposed  by  President 
and  Congress  ;  standing  alone ;  all  that  was  left  of  the  glory  and 
grandeur  of  the  age  of  liberty ;  his  eye  not  dimmed ;  his  natu 
ral  force  unabated;  he  denounced  the  usurpations  which  were 
sweeping  away  the  last  vestiges  of  constitutional  government, 
and  registered  the  mandates  of  his  court  as  his  only  legacy  to  a 
country  which  tamely  surrendered  to  the  behests  of  power.  The 
court,  too  feeble  to  enforce  its  edicts,  gave  way  to  brute  force.  In 
quiet  imitation  of  his  court,  his  enfeebled  body  surrendered  to 
time  and  his  great  spirit  returned  to  the  bosom  of  his  Creator, 
who  gave  its  lustrous  fires. 

There  were  also  Levi  Woodbury,  Thomas  Ewing,  Thomas 
Corwin  and  Walter  Forward,  who  occupied  this  distinguished 
position. 

No  defalcation  or  discrepancy  in  settlements,  had  scandalized 
the  Treasury  Department  until  Salmon  P.  Chase,  as  Secretary, 
purchased  his  way  into  the  favor  of  the  rich,  and  made  himself 
a  power  equal  to  any  European  monarch ;  which  he  employed 
with  far  less  regard  to  the  rights  of  the  people,  and  left  his  sin 
ister  face  engraved  upon  an  irredeemable  paper  currency,  which 
the  latest  generations  of  the  people  will  detest  as  the  insignia  of 
our  bondage  and  shame ;  who  now  defiles  the  pure  ermine  laid 
down  by  Taney,  and  divides  his  time  in  the  various  vocations  of 
inciting  negro  riots ;  travelling  in  oriental  style,  at  the  govern 
ment  expense,  in  ships  fitted  up  for  the  purpose,  and  delaying 
decisions  which  involve  the  liberties  of  the  people  and  the  vital 
ity  of  free  government. 

Such  had  been  the  character  of  the  great  men  who  filled  this 
place  before  the  late  civil  war,  and  such  is  the  instrument  of 
despotism  and  corruption  who  has  destroyed  its  character,  per 
verted  its  purpose,  and  fastened  its  great  weight  upon  the  neck 
of  the  people. 

After  the  introduction  of  the  odious  and  abominable  Funded 
System,  and  the  venal  ascension  of  Chase  to  the  Supreme  Bench, 
the  guardianship  of  the  Treasury  passed  into  the  hands  of  an 
obscure  gentleman  who  had  never  filled  a  higher  position  than 
that  of  officer  in  a  village  bank,  whose  principal  duty  and  re- 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAE.  187 

qulsite  knowledge  was  the  extraction  of  the  largest  interest  from 
the  smallest  capital,  singularly  in  conflict  with  that  of  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  who  must  pay  the  greatest  debt,  with  the  least 
private  oppression  and  public  'disaster.  Such  were  the  charac 
ter,  attainments,  and  qualifications  of  the  new  agent  which  called 
him  to  the  care  and  supervision  of  the  entire  business  property 
and  financial  destiny  of  the  country,  the  collection  and  disburse 
ment  of  the  public  moneys  of  the  government. 

Mr.  McCulloch  being  entirely  unknown  to  our  political,  judi 
cial  or  literary  history,  the  people  of  the  country  have  no  confi 
dence  in  either  his  ability  to  manage  the  public  affairs,  or  his 
integrity  to  expose  the  enormous  frauds  and  monstrous  corrup 
tions  of  Chase,  his  predecessor. 

It  would  be  neither  appropriate  nor  pardonable  to  censorious 
ly  comment  upon  the  qualifications  and  experience  possessed  by 
this  public  officer,  to  prepare  him  for  the  onerous  and  multifa 
rious  duties  of  his  great  public  trust. 

But  there  seems  an  incurable  mania  raging  among  the  people 
for  filling  exalted  places  with  sturdy  intellect,  but  which  it  is 
noteworthy,  is  not  reciprocated  by  the  intelligent  business  men  of 
the  country. 

Whilst  politicians  are  chosing  rail-splitters  to  fill  the  Presi 
dential  chair,  and  enfranchising  barbarian  negroes,  the  farmers 
are  not  willing  to  employ  bank-clerks  to  split  rails,  or  school 
masters  to  cultivate  the  soil. 

This  public  functionary,  with  a  patronizing  air,  proposes  as 
truths,  old  absurdities  which  were  exploded  by  facts  and  philos 
ophy  long  before  the  Christain  era,  and  which  have  never  since 
bp^n  defended  by  any  respectable  authors  upon  political  science. 

The  conduct  of  Mr.  McCulloch  challenges  criticism  and 
provokes  censure.  His  financial  reports  are  the  most  extraor 
dinary  of  our  revolutionary  times;  balderdash  which,  if  applied 
to  government,  will  ruin  the  country  and  bankrupt  the  people, 
leaving  its  business  prostrate  and  its  responsibilities  accumula 
ting  in  a  perpetually  increasing  ratio. 

His  financial  plans,  and  strangely  interwoven  political  theories, 
are  the  most  complete  exhibition  of  that  light-headedness  pecu 
liar  to  sudden  elevation,  for  which  nature  has  not  always  made 
adequate  previous  provision. 


188  CEIMES    OF   THE    CIVIL    WAR. 

The  people  have  no  right  to  complain  of  an  officer  because  he 
holds  office ;  they  should  rather  lend  their  fullest  support  to  the 
earnest,  trustworthy  public  servant  who  deals  with  the  common 
wealth  so  that  the  property  of  the  people  is  subservient  to  their 
legitimate  wants ;  but  when  the  agents  of  the  people  conspire 
with  their  enemies  to  overthrow  civil  government  and  enslave 
them,  no  expose  can  be  too  frank,  fearless  or  early,  and  no  re 
sistance  can  be  too  positive  or  decisive.  Such  is  the  attempt 
now  made  upon  the  labor  of  the  country  through  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury. 


CEIMES   OF   THE    CIVIL    WAR.  189 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE  MANNER  IN  WHICH  THE  LOAN  WAS  OBTAINED. 

THE  manner  in  which  this  loan  was  obtained,  is  set  forth  in 
graphic  style  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  the  following 
extraordinary  document : 

TJ.  s.  7-30  LOAN. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  gives  notice  that  subscriptions 
will  be  received  for  Coupon  Treasury  Notes,  payable  three  years 
from  August  15,  1864,  with  semi-annual  interest  at  the  rate  of 
seven  and  three-tenths  per  cent,  per  annum,  principal  and  interest 
both  to  be  paid  in  lawful  money. 

These  notes  will  be  convertible  at  the  option  of  the  holder,  at 
maturity,  into  six  per  cent,  gold-bearing  bonds,  payable  not  less 
than  five  nor  more  than  twenty  years  from  their  date,  as  Gov 
ernment  may  elect.  They  will  be  issued  in  denominations  of 
$50,  $100,  $500,  $1,000  and  $5,000,  and  all  subscriptions  must 
be  for  fifty  dollars  or  some  multiple  of  fifty  dollars. 

As  the  notes  draw  interest  from  August  15,  persons  making 
deposits  subsequent  to  that  date  must  pay  the  interest  accrued 
from  date  of  note  to  date  of  deposit. 

Parties  depositing  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  and  upward 
for  these  notes  at  any  one  time,  will  be  allowed  a  commission  of 
one-quarter  of  one  per  cent. 

SPECIAL  ADVANTAGES   OF  THIS  LOAN. 

IT  is  A  NATIONAL  SAVINGS  BANK,  oifering  a  higher  rate  of 
interest  than  any  other,  and  the  best  security.  Any  savings  bank 
which  pays  its  depositors  in  U.  S.  Notes,  considers  that  it  is  pay 
ing  in  the  best  circulating  medium  of  the  country,  and  it  cannot 
pay  in  anything  better,  for  its  own  assests  are  either  in  govern 
ment  securities  or  in  notes  or  bonds  payable  in  government  pa 
per. 


190  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR. 


CONVERTIBLE  INTO  A  6  PER  CENT.  5-20  GOLD  BOND. 

In  addition  to  the  very  liberal  interest  on  the  notes  for  three 
years,  this  privilege  of  conversion  is  now  worth  about  three  per 
cent,  per  annum,  for  the  current  rate  for  5-20  Bonds  is  not  less 
than  nine  per  cent,  premium,  and  before  the  war  the  premium 
on  six  per  cent.  U.  S.  Stocks  was  over  twenty  per  cent.  It  will 
be  seen  that  the  actual  profit  on  this  loan,  at  the  present  market 
rate,  is  not  less  than  ten  per  cent  per  annum. 

ITS  EXEMPTION  FROM  STATE  OR  MUNICIPAL  TAXATION. 

But  aside  from  all  the  advantages  we  have  enumerated,  a  spe 
cial  Act  of  Congress  exempts  all  Bonds  and  Treasury  Notes  from 
local  taxation.  On  the  average,  this  exemption  is  worth  about 
two  per  cent,  per  annum,  according  to  the  rate  of  taxation  in  va 
rious  parts  of  the  country. 

It  is  believed  that  no  securities  oifer  so  great  inducements  to 
lenders  as  those  issued  by  the  Government.  In  all  other  forms 
of  indebtedness,  the  faith  or  ability  of  private  parties  or  stock 
companies,  or  separate  communities,  only,  is  pledged  for  payment, 
while  the  whole  property  of  the  country  is  held  to  secure  the 
discharge  of  all  the  obligations  of  the  United  States. 

Subscriptions  will  be  received  by  the  Treasurer  of  the  United 
States  at  Washington,  the  several  assistant  Treasurers  and  desig 
nated  Depositories,  and  by  the 

FIRST  NATIONAL  BANK  OF  CINCINNATI,  O. 
SECOND        "  " 

THIRD          "  «  « 

FOURTH       "  " 

and  by  all  National  banks  which  are  depositories  of  public  money, 
and 

ALL   RESPECTABLE    BANKS    AND    BANKERS 

throughout  the  country  will  give  further  information,  and 

AFFORD   EVERY  FACILITY   TO   SUBSCRIBERS. 

Secretary  Chase  assumes  that  a  national  debt  is  a  national 
blessing.  The  substance  of  the  argument  to  prove  this  absurdity 
assumes  that  the  debt  is  due  from  the  people  of  the  United 
States  to  the  people  of  the  United  States ;  that  the  country  owes 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL,   WAR.  191 

that  much  to  itself.  But  it  is  also  a  debt  due  from  the  poor  to 
the  rich ;  from  labor  to  capital ;  from  the  industrious,  who  have 
nothing  but  what  they  earn  ;  to  the  opulent,  who  have  amassed 
their  fortunes  from  the  labor  of  the  poor. 

It  is  a  debt  paid  from  patient,  honest  industry,  to  impatient, 
pompous  idleness.  The  very  nature  of  this  debt  is  more  op 
pressive  that  it  is  due  from  one  class  to  another  class  of  the  same 
people,  which  makes  the  hardship  greater  ;  that  it  taxes  the 
humble  classes  to  perpetuate  an  invidious  distinction  to  their 
injury;  stints  the  bread  of  their  children  to  add  to  the  extrava 
gance  of  their  insolent  oppressor.  No  debt  can  become  so  in 
vidious  without  this  distinctive  feature. 

The  nearer  you  bring  the  oppressor  and  the  oppressed  in  con 
tact,  the  more  crushing  will  be  the  slavery. 

The  following  absurdities  are  assumed  in  regard  to  our  debt : 

1.  That  it  has  added  the  full  amount  of  itself  to  our  capital; 
that  we  are  worth  $4,000,000,000  more  by  being  that  amount  in 
debt ;  that  war  is  the  most  profitable  condition  of  society ;  debt 
the  only  source  of  profit ;  public  robbers  the  only  patriots ;  and 
extravagance  the  highway  to  prosperity. 

2.  That  "  a  national  debt  is  the  only  bond  of  union."     "  That 
protection  and  excise  are  essential  to  each  other ;  both  are  neces- 
ary  to  sustain  the  national   debt;  neither  alone  could  uphold 
its  weight ;  and  without  the  national  debt,  neither  system  of 
revenue  could  endure  with  the  indispensably  necessary  quality 
of  steadiness  and  permanence." 

The  purpose  of  the  permanence  of  the  debt  is  the  settled  pol 
icy  of  the  authors  of  the  funded  system. 

3..  Upon  this  debt  was  erected  the  National  Banking  System, 
elsewhere  examined. 

This  remarkable  paper  was  issued  when  the  government  was 
in  the  jaws  of  bankruptcy,  and  the  exchange  board  of  the  great 
money  market  was  hawking  government  bonds  at  thirty-four  to 
forty  cents  on  the  dollar.  The  world  was  invited  to  pay  into 
the  treasury  the  worthless  trash  which  had  been  paid  out  in  ex 
orbitant  prices  for  worthless  wares ;  in  exchange  for  which  the 
government  would  give  them  finally  one  dollar  in  gold-bearing 
bonds  at  six  per  cent. 


192  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

This  prodigal  offer  was  nearly  two  hundred  percent,  premium 
above  the  price  paid,  drawing  nearly  triple  interest  upon  the 
original  sum  loaned,  after  three  years'  race  in  paper.  As  an  in 
ducement  to  perpetuate  this  robbery  upon  the  public,  the  Secre 
tary  offered  to  pay  one-fourth  of  one  per  cent,  to  every  one  who 
will  deposite  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  or  upwards  at  any  one 
time. 

At  this  gloomy  period,  with  the  whole  superstructure  of  gov 
ernment  groaning  beneath  the  burden,  this  loan  was  proposed  as 
a  National  Savings  Bank,  offering  a  higher  rate  of  interest  than 
any  other.  No  other  government  offers  such  rates  of  interest ; 
no  solvent  government  can  pay  more  than  three  or  four  per 
cent.;  even  European  despotisms  dare  not  impose  heavier  bur 
dens  upon  an  unwilling  people  for  long  periods,  upon  large 
sums. 

Governments  ought  never  borrow  money,  but  in  times  of 
peace  prepare  for  war,  which  was  the  custom  of  the  ancient  re 
publics,  and  a  wide  departure  from  which  is  the  destruction  of  re 
publican  government. 

Secretary  Chase,  who  thus  serves  his  political  schemes,  and 
replenishes  his  private  purse,  assures  the  purchaser  of  bonds 
that  "  The  privilege  of  conversion  is  now  worth  about  three  per 
cent,  per  annum  for  the  current  rate,  for  5-20  bonds  is  not  less 
than  nine  per  cent,  premium.  On  six  per  cent.  U.  S.  Stocks  be 
fore  the  war  the  premium  was  over  twenty  per  cent.  It  will  be 
seen  that  the  actual  profit  on  this  loan  at  the  present  market  rate 
is  not  less  than  ten  per  cent,  per  annum." 

It  seems  incredible  that  such  a  publication  should  have  been 
made  by  any  public  officer  acting  in  his  place.  It  is  remarkable 
that  the  tax-payers  read  it  with  patience. 

This  inviting  investment  was  secured  at  about  thirty-four 
cents  on  the  dollar.  Could  the  exaggerated  statement  of  a  bitter 
political  enemy,  in  the  heat  of  a  violent  campaign,  assail  the 
Secretary  with  more  vehemence,  or  more  effectually  damage  the 
credit  of  the  government,  than  is  done  in  this  naked  statement? 

This  loan-broker  assures  the  tax-payers  that  the  debt  draws  a 
higher  interest  than  any  other  borrower  pays;  and  notifies  the 
slaves,  serfs,  vassals  and  Helots  of  the  United  States,  that  these 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  193 

bonds  are  exempt  from  taxation.  These  arguments  alone  ought 
to  have  enlisted  all  the  floating  capital  of  the  world. 

But  he  reaches  the  climax,  and  guarantees  the  borrower  that 
these  bonds  are  a  first  mortgage  upon  all  of  the  property  of  the 
whole  country,  real  or  personal,  and  the  people  are  the  mortgagees. 

If  these  bonds  and  debts  are  valid,  then  the  property  of  the 
country  is  worth  nothing.  If  it  were  exposed  at  public  sale  in 
every  financial  metropolis  of  the  world,  and  the  capital  of  man 
kind  invited  to  competition  in  the  market,  the  property  would 
not  realize  the  money  necessary  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  country. 
We  are  but  tenants  at  will,  paying  rents  on  our  own  land.  If 
our  property  is  worth  anything,  it  is  just  in  proportion  as  this 
monstrous  debt  is  repudiated.  This  is  an  overpowering  argu 
ment  in  favor  of  repudiation,  and  can  be  answered  only  by  re 
pudiation.  These  bonds  become  more  odious  in  their  applica 
tion  as  the  basis  of  the  Banking  System,  the  base-born,  offspring 
of  crime  and  misfortune,  with  the  attributes  of  each. 

A   NATIONAL   DEBT   IS  A  NATIONAL   CURSE. 

In  every  despotism,  a  national  debt  is  a  necessity  to  the  exer 
cise  of  arbitrary  power;  or  the  maintenance  of  the  privileged 
orders,  who  employ  the  wealth  of  the  country  to  subjugate  labor 
to  taxation,  which  is  the  specific  office  of  a  national  debt.  The 
four  great  powers  of  Europe  have  each  a  permanent  national 
debt,  and  employ  the  people  in  wars  of  conquest  to  prevent  revo 
lution  at  home  or  in  throwing  off  the  oppression  of  the  constant 
and  unrelenting  system  of  taxation ;  which  alternates  their  condi 
tion  between  slavery  for  the  support  of  the  profligate  royalty  and 
the  conquest  of  other  helpless,  harmless  people,  to  increase  the 
extent  of  their  domain  and  the  number  of  the  slaves. 

Debt.  Interest.    Debt  per  capita. 

France  in  1853, $2,304,000,000.. ..$132,360,000.... $62.12 

Austria  in  1864, 1,263,400,000....     75,100,000,...  36.00 

Great  Britain  in  1863,  4,000,918,944....  127,564,548....  20.00 
United  States  in  1866,  4,000,000,000.,...  292,000,000....  125.00 
Russia  in  1864, 1,116,800,000....  27,100,000....  19.64 

Thaddeus  Stevens,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  says : 
13 


194  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Our  war  debt  is  estimated  at  from  three  to  four  billions  of 
dollars.  In  my  judgment,  when  all  is  funded  and  the  pensions 
capitalized,  it  will  reach  more  than  four  billions. 

The  interest  at  6  per  cent,  only,  (now  much  more)  $240,000,000 

The  ordinary  expenses  of  our  Government  are 120,000,000 

For  some  years  the  extraordinary  expenses  of  our 

army 'and  navy  will  be 110,000,000 

$470,000,000 

Four  hundred  and  seventy  millions  to  be  raised  by  taxation ! 
Our  present  heavy  taxes  will  not  in  ordinary  years,  produce  but 
little  more  than  half  that  sum.  Can  our  people  bear  double 
their  present  taxation  ?  He  who  unnecessarily  causes  it,  will  be 
accursed  from  generation  to  generation.  It  is  fashionable  to  be 
little  our  public  debt,  lest  the  people  should  become  alarmed,  and 
political  parties  should  suffer.  I  have  never  found  it  wise  to  de 
ceive  the  people.  They  can  always  be  trusted  with  the  truth. 
Capitalists  will  not  be  affected,  for  they  can  not  be  deceived. 
Confide  in  the  people,  and  you  will  avoid  repudiation.  Deceive 
them,  and  lead  them  into  false  measures,  and  you  may  produce 
it. 

We  pity  the  poor  Englishmen  whose  national  debt  and  burden 
some  taxation  we  have  heard  deplored  from  our  childhood.  The 
debt  of  Great  Britain  is  just  about  as  much  as  ours,  (4,000,000,- 
000)  four  billions.  But  in  effect  it  is  but  half  as  large, —  it  bears 
but  three  per  cent,  interest.  The  current  year  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  tells  us,  the  interest  was  $131, 806,990,  ours,  when 
all  shall  be  funded,  will  be  nearly  double. 

As  the  prelude  and  consequence  of  the  monstrous  doctrines 
taught  by  Secretary  Chase  and  the  consequent  issue  of  a  volatile 
paper  money,  every  avenue  of  trade  was  filled  with  an  inflated 
currency.  The  men  who  commenced  and  carried  through  the 
war,  appealed  to  the  avarice  of  the  rich,  the  fears  of  the  timid, 
and  the  love  of  plunder,  to  the  speculators  and  stock  gamblers,  un 
til  the  alarming  spectacle  was  presented  to  the  financial  world,  of  a 
prosperity  based  upon  the  violation  of  every  well  known  axiom 
of  political  economy.  Indeed,  every  project  was  a  new  inven 
tion  in  the  progressive  march  of  power  and  glory.  Albeit,  the 
same  thing  had  been  exploded  at  least  once  in  every  generation 
of  thirty  years,  and  had  as  certainly  ruined  every  people  who 


CRIMES   OF    THE    CIVIL    WAR.  195 

had  foolishly  adopted  it.  Every  discarded  barbarity  which  had 
been  stamped  with  the  opprobrium  of  the  Christian  era  was  her 
alded  as  a  new  and  bold  stroke  of  military  policy,  indicated  by 
humanity  and  justified  by  necessity,  as  the  offspring  of  genius 
and  harbinger  of  the  millenium. 

The  charlatans  who  control  public  affairs,  quite  as  careful  of 
their  fame  as  they  have  been  of  their  power,  propose  to  defend 
their  crimes  as  virtues,  and  commend  their  ignorance  and  stupid 
ity  as  the  highest  intelligence  and  most  brilliant  invention. 
Every  thing  was  accounted  marvellous,  because,  in  fact,  it  was  friv 
olous  and  insolent.  Balderdash  has  been  served  up  to  the  people 
as  profound  discoveries  in  the  sciences  of  arms,  finances  and  gov 
ernment,  and  strange  enough,  the  people  crowded  together  like 
sheep,  trembled  with  fear,  listened  and  believed,  exercised  faith 
and  quietly  put  on  the  yoke  of  bondage.  THESE  THINGS  WERE 
SCARCELY  RESISTED.  The  base  and  shameful  cowardice  of  those 
who  assumed  leadership,  the  wicked  and  heartless  betrayal  of 
their  old  friends  by  those  who  were  entrusted  with  the  defence 
of  liberty  and  the  mercenary  instincts  of  those  who  engaged  in 
a  war  of  plunder,  weakened  the  ranks  of  the  friends  of  free  in 
stitutions  and  emboldened  the  enemies  of  liberty  until  at  last  the 
great  body  of  people  became  tame,  lost  their  courage  and  dared 
not  open  their  mouths  through  fear  of  drunken  vagabonds,  wear 
ing  government  epaulettes,  and  licensed  to  shoot  down  whoever 
might  cross  their  pathway.  Those  reckless  mercenaries  gathered 
up  from  the  purlieus  of  cities,  or  those  dastardly  wretches  who, 
through  fear  of  the  battle-field  and  long  continued  habits  of 
crime,  prepared  to  commit  every  manner  of  depredation,  were 
stationed  through  the  country  for  that  purpose,  ready  to  be  hissed 
on  by  a  mob  of  civilians  who  were  making  fortunes  by  the  war ; 
and  ecclesiastics,  whose  salaries  were  regulated  by  the  fluctuations 
of  the  currency.  Never  did  the  resistless  flood-tide  sweep  away 
all  obstructions  in  its  path  more  completely,  than  did  this  rain  of 
lampblack  and  rags,  greenbacks  and  bonds,  contracts  and  official 
positions,  which  found  their  way  everywhere. 

Boot-blacks  and  barbers,  hack-drivers  and  ostlers,  prostitutes 
and  pimps,  had  open  oyster  suppers  and  public  receptions ;  whilst 
gamblers  hung  their  destinies  upon  the  good  or  ill  luck  of  the  wheel 


196  CRIMES    OF   THE    CIVIL   WAR. 

of  fortune,  and  would  light  their  cigars  with  government  scrip. 
The  city  hotels  and  fashionable  watering-places  were  infested 
with  a  fortunate  rabble  who  drove  true  gentility  from  the  country, 
and  made  arbitrary  changes  in  the  laws  of  fashion,  radical  as  the 
brokers  and  government  financiers  had  made  in  the  laws  of 
money  and  commerce.  Ignorant  men  and  gross  women,  fresh 
from  the  army,  or  dripping  with  petroleum,  scandalized  society  j 
whilst  the  cultivated  minds  of  the  country  sought  society  in  se 
clusion,  or  went  in  disgust  to  foreign  lands. 

Everybody  was  rich,  money  was  begging  owners,  everything 
commanded  enormous  prices,  which  kept  advancing ;  money  was 
increasing  in  amount  until  one  dollar  (gold  and  silver)  command 
ed  nearly  three  dollars  of  the  government  pledges.  Thus  was 
a  double  crime  perpetrated  upon  the  country.  First.  Every  dol 
lar  which  had  been  loaned  in  good  faith  in  gold,  often  in  cases  to 
save  valuable  property  from  execution,  was  now  paid  in  scrip, 
which  had  no  intrinsic  value  and  was  subject  to  the  mutations  of 
a  profligate  paper  currency.  The  debtor  paid  his  debt  in  these 
government  pledges,  the  courts  came  to  the  rescue  and  repudiated 
two-thirds  of  the  value  of  the  debt.  This  was  so  universal  that 
it  is  not  a  violent  presumption  that  all  of  the  outstanding  debts 
of  the  country  were  paid  with  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar ;  and  in 
fact,  fully  one-half  of  the  whole  indebtedness  of  private  individ 
uals  was  in  this  way  utterly  repudiated;  and  when  the  injured 
party  appealed  to  the  courts,  the  courts  sustained  the  repudiation 
and  decreed  that  the  debts  should  be  cancelled  by  the  payments 
of  depreciated  government  scrip  substituted  for  gold  and  silver. 
This  was,  in  fact,  no  payment  of  the  debt,  but  simply  a  transfer 
of  it  from  the  man  who  paid  it  to  the  government,  which  as 
sumed  it  by  the  issue  of  its  paper;  and  this  money  which  he 
seemed  to  get  was  the  very  shadow  of  the  money  which  he  was 
entitled  to;  and  after  receiving  this  mere  paper,  he  had  to  be  taxed 
enormously  to  pay  the  very  debt  which  was  thus  transferred  from 
the  debtor  to  the  government ;  and  from  the  government  back  to 
the  creditor,  to  be  paid  in  taxes ;  and  the  very  debt  which  was 
due  him  and  with  which  he  had  proposed  to  pay  outstanding 
debts,  which  were  a  lien  upon  his  property ;  but  the  lien  simply 
changed  its  owner  and  was  finally  placed  back  upon  his  property 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  197 

in  a  tax  of  perpetual  duration,  due  the  government,  to  be  issued 
out  to  its  specially  favoured  creditors  in  gold.  But  this  system 
of  finance  became  noisome  in  every  market ;  the  government  was 
the  cheif  buyer,  overriding  all  competition.  When  the  dray 
man,  planter  or  railroad  wanted  to  buy  a  horse,  the  government 
agent  outbid  him  or  drove  him  entirely  out  of  the  market. 

The  Federal  contractor  went  in  competition  with  the  butcher, 
to  buy  cattle ;  and  made  the  soldier  in  the  field  bid  against  his 
half-starved  family  at  home,  to  increase  the  price  of  beef.  The 
government  agent  was  bidding  against  the  people  in  the  price  of 
every  commodity.  This  reduced  the  country  into  two  general 
classes.  The  one  class  of  government  employees,  the  other  were 
serfs  to  support  and  subsist  them.  Every  article  used  for  the 
sustenance  of  life,  or  the  comforts  of  living,  was  seized  upon  by 
the  government  agents,  who  knew  no  bounds  to  prices,  except 
their  own  whims.  The  poorer  people  had  to  take  the  inferior 
articles  at  a  vastly  increased  rate.  The  government  managers 
were  unrestricted  in  their  extravagance.  They  measured  the 
capacity  to  meet  contracts  only  by  the  power  of  the  government 
printing-presses  to  issue  promises  to  pay.  This  was  the  only  re 
straint  imposed  upon  those  who  held  the  entire  control  of  the 
property  of  the  country.  With  the  whole  land  under  martial 
law,  the  Congress  under  duress,  the  independent  judges  in  jail, 
newspapers  that  wrote  one  word  of  the  tendency  of  the  govern 
ment  to  bankruptcy,  were  summarily  suppressed ;  and  public 
speakers  hurried  off  to  forts,  who  denounced  this  public  profli 
gacy.  In  was  in  this  state  of  affairs  an  easy  matter  to  print 
money  ad  libitum,  and  involve  the  country  in  a  debt  of  thousands 
of  millions  of  dollars.  It  requires  but  a  slight  acquaintance  with 
the  philosophy  of  finance  to  understand  that  the  true  method  for 
the  conduct  of  a  great  civil  or  foreign  war,  is  to  contract  prices 
with  the  increase  of  expenditures ;  that  the  rich,  who  hoard  provis 
ions,  shall  bear  the  weight  of  the  burdens  imposed  upon  the  coun 
try,  rather  than  the  poor,  whose  existence  is  at  stake  in  the  vacilla 
tion  of  prices  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  shall  be  driven  to  star 
vation.  When  usurpation  is  the  chief  element  in  the  conduct 
of  the  war,  and  starvation  is  added  to  force  to  drive  the  poor 
into  the  ranks  of  the  army  —  then  forced  loans  should  be  made 


198  CEIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

from  the  rich  to  encourage  voluntary  service,  instead  of  driving 
poor  men  from  their  families  into  the  slaughter  pens.  This 
would  equalize  the  burdens  of  the  war  and  present  the  accumu 
lations  of  a  burthensome  debt  upon  the  people.  In  carrying  on 
the  late  civil  war,  the  government  borrowed  everything  and  paid 
nothing;  intrigued  with  the  banks,  that  in  collusion  they  might 
rob  the  country  of  everything.  To  initiate  the  fraud,  it  was  pre 
tended  that  the  government  was  under  lasting  obligations  to  the 
bankers  for  favors  of  money,  when  in  fact  the  bankers  lent  noth 
ing  but  the  weight  of  their  credit  to  oppress  the  people  and 
carry  out  the  war ;  that  in  return  the  government  might  use  the 
banking-system  as  an  engine  of  perpetual  oppression  of  the  peo 
ple  to  enrich  its  officers. 

After  borrowing  everything  which  was  to  loan,  they  then  bor 
rowed  from  the  industry,  liberty  and  hopes  of  every  succeeding 
generation,  to  enrich  the  profligate  extortioners,  usurers,  specu 
lators,  adventurers  and  mercenaries  who,  having  destroyed  the 
country  by  war,  would  enslave  the  people  by  taxation. 

The  true  standard  by  which  to  measure  the  amount  of  taxes 
paid  by  a  people,  is  the  difference  in  the  prices  paid  for  the  same 
article  at  different  times,  under  nearly  the  same  general  circum 
stances.  This  is  the  only  means  where  nearly  the  whole  amount 
is  carefully  concealed  under  cover  of  duties,  excises  and  other 
deceitful  means  of  hiding  taxations,  which  have  been  so  gener 
ally  resorted  to  by  the  treacherous  legislation  of  modern  times. 

The  effect  of  this  war  and  consequent  taxation  in  regard  to 
the  cost  of  living.  Mark  the  contrast  with  the  prices  we  paid  : 

GEOCEBIES. 

Democratic  Price  in  1860.  Abolition  Price  in  1805. 

Teas 45u50c.  per  Ib.     Teas §1  00a$2  50 

Sugars .8    9c.        "          Sugars 20         oO 

Coffees 14  IGc.        "         Coffees Go 

Nutmegs 50  5Gc.  Nutmegs 

Pepper 8     9c.        "         Pepper G5 

Allspice G     8c.  Allspice 50 

Cinnamon 20  22c.  Cinnamon §100 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  199 


DRY  GOODS DOMESTIC. 


Brown  Sheetings  .  .8  Jc.  per  yd.  Brown  Sheetings  .  .65c.  per  yd. 

Prints,  Calicoes,  etc  5Jc.       "  Prints,  Cal icoes,  etc  40c. 

Bleached  Muslins.. .5|c.      "  Bleached  Muslins.. .75c. 

Canton  Flannels...  10c.      "  Canton  Flannels... 90c.      " 

*  *      «  •. .-  C* 

FOREIGN. 

Delaines 15Jc.  per  yd.     Delaines , 7 5c.  per  yd. 

DressGoods 25c.      "          Dress  Goods 80c.      " 

Velvets $250       "          Velvets §1200  < 

RAW  COTTON,  ETC. 

Cotton  laps 18c.  perlb.  Cotton  laps $1  75perlb. 

Wadding 40c.       "  Wadding 220       " 

Carpet  Chain 20c.       "  Carpet  Chain.. «...   110       " 

Lamp  Wick 20c.       "  Lamp  Wick 1  50 

METALS,  ETC. 

Lead 6c.  perlb.         Lead 32c.  perlb. 

Antimony 13c.       "  Antimony 75c.       " 

Block.Tin 31c.       "  Block  Tin 90c.       " 

COAL. 

Of  which  the  poor  man's  fire  consumes  as  much  as  that  which 
,  blazes  in  the  rich  man's  parlor  —  in  former  days  could  be  had 
for  four  or  five  dollars  ;  it  now  costs  fourteen  and  fifteen  dollars 
a  ton. 

CLOTHS. 

Satinets , 45a50c.  per  yd.         $1  75  per  yd. 

Broadcloths,  Cassimeres,  etc.,  have  increased  from  100  to  150 
per  ct. 

DRUGS  have  increased  in  price  on  an  average  of  200  per  ct. 

TOBACCO — Manufactured  Cavendish  Tobacco  has  risen  from 
35  cents  to  $1  25  per  pound. 

CIGARS  have  advanced  from  $20  to  $60  and  $200  per  thous 
and. 

FOREIGN  STATIONERY,  since  the  scarcity  of  specie,  has  risen 
50  per  cent. 

The  above  table  made  out  from  the  actual  market  prices,  is 
a  very  fair  exhibit  of  what  the  masses  of  the  poor  suffer,  as  well  as 


200  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

pay  for,  iu  contribution  to  the  debt.     The  increasing  pressure 
upon  the  poor  of  the  country,  is  precipitating  the  crisis. 

The  poverty  of  the  country  and  the  sufferings  of  the  people, 
are  the  irreputable  arguments  which  must  stare  Chief  Justice 
Chase  in  the  eyes  when  the  people  have  turued  upon  their  oppres 
sors. 


CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  201 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  WAR  DEBT  is  NOT  A  JUST  DEBT. 

WHAT  is  a  just  and  what  an  unjust  debt?  To  fasten  upon 
thirty  millions  of  people,  by  a  minority  of  votes,  and  transmit 
to  their  posterity  in  the  most  palpable  case,  will  always  be  a 
matter  of  doubt  which  can  never  be  satisfactorily  determined 
either  by  the  contention  of  debate  or  the  conflict  of  war. 

There  never  yet  has  been  a  party  in  power  in  any  government 
which  excited  or  prosecuted  a  war,  whether  to  satiate  revenge  or 
gratify  ambition,  that  did  not  at  the  same  time  assume  the  con 
test  as  not  only  justifiable,  but  just ;  not  only  necessary,  but  holy. 
Such  is  the  brief  epitome  of  the  arguments  upon  all  wars.  Such 
were  declared  the  character  and  purposes  of  the  wars  of  the 
Stuarts  to  crush  the  proud  spirit  of  liberty  in  the  English  people, 
the  war  of  King  George  to  enslave  America,  wars  against 
Ireland,  Scotland  and  the  East  Indies  by  Great  Britain, — indeed 
all  wars  by  all  tyrants. 

Every  war  has  been  the  heated  theme  of  songs  and  prayers, 
thanksgiving  and  praise,  on  every  side,  by  all  parties  engaged ; 
has  been  used  as  the  machinery  by  which  the  human  passions 
might  be  inflamed  to  their  highest  pitch  of  intensity ;  and  re 
ligious  sentiment  used  as  the  vehicle  in  which  tyrants  rode  into 
power,  and  the  habiliments  worn  by  demons  to  enter  the  high 
priesthood,  bearing  the  palm-wreath  of  victory  or  making  their 
mournful  dirge  as  victory  or  defeat  befel  them  or  the  other  army  in 
conflict.  This  evident  consciousness  of  right  was  not  confined  to  one 
party  alone.  Each  contending  side  was  alike  appealing  to  heaven 
for  vindication  of  their  mottoes,  and  denunciation  of  the  wickedness 
of  their  enemies.  Indeed,  it  is  the  common  and  remarkable  feature 
of  the  history  of  all  wars,  that  the  same  self-adulatory  harangues 
in  very  nearly  the  same  phraseology,  making  due  allowance  for 


202  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

the  difference  of  language  and  the  habits,  passions  or  customs  of 
the  people,  have  been  employed  in  every  country  only  with  the 
slightest  difference  in  America  and  Kussia,  England  and  China, 
Spain  and  Judea.  The  same  imprecations  of  those  they  met 
in  battle  seem  stereotyped  in  the  mind,  and  painted  only  in  new 
colors,  without  a  change  of  feature. 

Held  by  the  light  of  Christianity,  all  wars  are  wicked.  They 
are  doubly  wicked  when  Christians  are  engaged  in  mutual  de 
struction  ;  but  they  are  atrocious  beyond  all  power  of  expression 
when  they  involve  people  of  a  common  blood,  brethren  in  the 
flesh  and  in  the  spirit. 

It  is  only  when  pervading  infidelity  and  thorough  corruption 
coalesce  to  destroy  the  Church  and  State  together,  that  such  wars 
can  transpire  and  escape  the  opprobrium  of  both  civilization  and 
Christianity. 

All  such  wars  are  at  best  but  organized  systems  of  robbery, 
with  a  common  tendency  and  common  end  to  the  ruin  of  the 
country,  the  overthrow  of  just  government,  and  the  robbery  and 
degradation  of  the  people. 

In  full  view  of  the  wrongs  and  evils  of  war,  the  self-evident 
rights  of  man,  and  the  clearly  wicked  and  spiteful  character  of 
this  war,  what  authority  will  be  called  in  requisition  to  justify 
the  attempt  to  bind  generation  after  generation,  loaded  with  an 
immoveable  debt,  to  the  car-wheel  of  bankruptcy,  and  destroy 
our  form  of  government. 

This  debt  was  incurred  to  carry  on  a  war  conceived  in  the 
foulest  passions  of  depraved  human  nature,  carried  on  for  the 
mercenary  purposes  of  personal  gain  by  a  systematized  corruption, 
cruelty  and  crime;  condemned  by  every  conception  of  justice, 
and  outdoing  in  all  of  the  elements  of  wrong,  the  startling  crimes 
charged  by  Edmund  Burke  against  Warren  Hastings  (whilst 
Governor  of  India)  in  the  British  Parliament. 

In  all  of  this  wicked,  cruel  war,  there  has  been  but  these  un 
changeable  objects  in  view :  to  glut  the  avarice  of  the  rich,  to 
satiate  the  vengeance  of  the  spiteful,  and  minister  to  the  most 
grovelling  appetites  of  the  vicious;  to  make  the  people  the 
slaves  of  money  and  their  armies  the  tools  of  tyrants. 

This  argument  in   behalf  of  the  late  civil  war  is   somewhat 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  203 

changed,  but  is  not  strengthened,  when  the  proposition  assumes 
that  the  war  was  carried  on  (which  is  now  upon  all  hands  con 
ceded)  to  abolish  the  system  of  African  servitude  in  the  United 
States. 

The  argument  concedes  two  points  presented  in  this  review : 

1.  There  was  no  evil  in  slavery  which  could  be  abolished  by 
war,  to  give  it  efficiency  in  times  of  peace.     This  is  quite  clear 
in  itself,  but  it  is  fully  conceded  in  the  fact  of  the  government, 
by  the  change  demanded  in  the  Constitution,  and  through  du 
ress  and  fraud  added  to  it. 

2.  The  great  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  negro  by 
his  transfer  from  Africa  to  America,  will  place  it  beyond  cavil 
in  history  that  he  suffered  no  evil  in  the  exchange  of  countries, 
conditions  and  character. 

It  is  quite  as  apparent  that  he  has  received  no  benefit  from  the 
late  transition  from  organized  protection  to  social  anarchy. 

3.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  will  of  the  people  — which  is 
the  great  common  law  of  America  when  legally  expressed  — 
concerning  the  status  of  the  negro,  there  has  been  nothing  done 
for  his  benefit  by  war  which  might  not  have  been  far  better  done 
peaceably,  without  the  shedding  of  blood,  the   destruction  of 
property,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  republican  form  of  govern 
ment,  the  triple  enormities  perpetrated  by  the  late  revolution. 

The  debt  is  not  just  in  this,  that  we  have  had  no  quid  pro 
quo. 

THE  PEOPLE  AEE  NOT  BOUND  IN  JUSTICE  TO  PAY  THIS 
DEBT. 

We  have  received  nothing  in  return  for  it.  Our  currency  is 
destroyed,  our  liberties  gone,  our  institutions  overthrown,  leaves 
us  nothing  for  all  that  we  have  lost,  all  that  we  have  squandered 
and  all  that  we  have  surrendered,  to  say  nothing  of  the  enor 
mous  debt  that  we  have  contracted  and  yet  hangs  over  us.  The 
eternal  law  that  every  sale  implies  a  price,  the  quid  pro  quo 
leaves  this  debt  without  approximating  a  material  consideration, 
adequate  or  inadequate  to  its  payment. 

THIS   DEBT    MIGHT   HAVE   BEEN   AVOIDED. 

The  evidence  is  everywhere  at  hand.  By  a  strict  adherence 
to  the  constitution  in  the  enunciation  of  political  principles,  it 


204  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

never  could  have  transpired.  An  honest,  earnest  address  to  the 
people  from  President  Lincoln  after  his  election,  would  have 
thoroughly  settled  the  public  mind,  quieted  excitement,  prevent 
ed  civil  wars,  with  the  consequent  blood,  carnage  and  crime. 

Upon  the  inauguration  of  the  President,  a  clear  and  implicit 
declaration  of  his  purpose  and  constitutional  integrity  would 
have  disarmed  those  already  in  arms,  and  restored  quiet  to  the 
country,  and  utterly  ruined  the  leaders  of  the  secession  move 
ment  by  destroying  the  pretexts  for  secession. 

Congress  could  have  arrested  the  war  by  manly  avowals  in  the 
beginning  of  its  session  in  1861,  notwithstanding  the  well  ground 
ed  distrust  which  had  fixed  itself  in  the  public  mind.  By  the 
least  exhibition  of  justice  upon  the  part  of  the  administration, 
the  war  would  have  been  avoided. 

The  administration  of  Lincoln  saw  the  absolute  necessity  of 
general  public  bribery  to  make  the  shadows  of  money  abundant 
among  the  people,  and  intoxicate  them  with  the  appearances  of 
wealth,  and  postpone  taxation  to  posterity.  They  used  no  more 
restraints  upon  expenditures  than  the  profligate  libertine,  who 
measures  his  extravagance  by  his  power  to  destroy  property  and 
capacity  to  create  debt. 

It  was  in  view  of  creating  war  and  preventing  the  exposure 
of  the  nakedness  of  the  administration,  that  presses  were  destroy 
ed,  free  speech  prohibited  and  elections  treated  as  a  farce,  to  des 
troy  the  liberties  of  the  people,  with  all  of  the  solemn  forms  of 
law. 

The  administration  of  the  government  forced  issues  be 
tween  capital  and  labor,  arbitrary  power  and  rational  govern 
ment.  It  has  been  made  our  duty  in  self-preservation  to  teach 
tyrants  that  all  elections  shall  be  fair  and  free,  to  teach  usurpers 
that  the  will  of  the  people  shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land. 
That  no  debt  contracted  to  enslave  them  shall  be  paid.  Self-res 
pect  imposes  this  duty  upon  the  people,  to  impress  this  lesson 
upon  despots,  that  legislation  shall  be  pure  and  untrammelled. 
It  is  a  duty  that  we  owe  to  free  government,  that  no  statute  en 
acted,  no  debt  contracted,  no  obligation  imposed  by  corrupt  or 
unfair  legislation,  shall  be  of  such  binding  force  as  that  a  failure 
in  the  courts  to  declare  them  void,  shall  prevent  the  people  at 
their  will,  from  repudiating  them. 


CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL,   WAR.  205 

This  will  instruct  capitalists  and  gamblers  in  stocks,  who 
swindle  themselves  into  wealth,  that  they  may  not  trample  labor 
into  the  dust  with  impunity,  nor  safely  connive  at  the  overthrow 
of  constitutional  government,  to  amass  immense  wealth. 


206  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  WAR  DEBT  is  UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 

BY  what  authority  did  the  President  destroy  State  govern 
ment? 

"The  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every  State  in  this 
Union  a  republican  form  of  government,  and  shall  protect  each 
of  them  against  invasion,  and,  on  application  of  the  Legislature, 
from  domestic  violence."  Const.  Art.  IV,  Sec.  4. 

What  Governor  or  Legislature  of  what  State  applied  to  the 
President  to  protect  them  against  domestic  violence  ? 

On  the  contrary,  when  the  President  asked  the  Governors  of 
Tennessee,  Virginia,  Missouri  and  Kentucky,  to  do  this,  they 
indignantly  declined  the  work  of  butchery  proposed ;  the  Presi 
dent  had  no  right  to  invade  any  State. 

There  wras  no  domestic  violence ;  the  operation  of  law  was 
unclogged  until  the  President  commenced  the  work  of  disinte 
gration.  There  were  no  changes  made  in  the  State  laws  and 
State  constitutions,  which  were  not  made  in  conformity  with  the 
organic  laws. 

By  what  authority  did  the  President  imprison  the  Legislature 
of  Maryland  ?  incarcerate  Judges  of  the  several  States  of  the 
Union  ? 

"  The  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  not  be  con 
strued  to  extend  to  any  suit  of  law  or  equity,  commenced  or  to 
be  prosecuted  against  one  of  the  United  States  by  citizens  of 
another  State  or  by  subjects  of  a  foreign  power."  Xlth  Amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution. 

How  much  less  the  right  to  wage  war  against  a  State.  "What 
may  not  be  done  peaceably,  may  not  be  forcibly  done.  Judgment 
always  precedes  execution.  A  war  levied  against  a  State  is 
unconstitutional.  A  debt  contracted  for  such  purpose  is  likewise 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  207 

unconstitutional.  No  such  war  could  grow  out  of  the  Consti 
tution,  nor  the  debt  be  of  valid  obligation. 

The  people  are  not  bound  by  the  Constitution  to  pay  this 
debt,  because  it  was  entirely  unauthorized  by  the  Constitution. 
It  was  created  in  violation  of  the  Constitution,  for  the  purpose 
of  overthrowing  the  Constitution. 

From  the  beginning  there  was  scarcely  anything  lawfully  done . 
and  what  was  otherwise  lawfully  done,  was  done  in  an  unlawful 
manner. 

The  general  emulation  in  civil  and  military  life,  was  to  see  who 
could  set  the  laws  most  at  defiance. 

These  facts  are  conceded  by  the  authors  and  instigators  of  the 
war. 

1.  They  passed  acts  of  immunity  to  cover  their  crimes. 

2.  They  offered  amendments  to  the  Constitution  to  legalize 
their  usurpations. 

3.  They  propose  amendments  to  make  the  debt  obligatory 
upon  the  country. 

How  can  a  debt  bind  a  people  which  is  not  made  according  to 
law? 

WE  ARE  NOT  BOUND  BY  THE  THEORY  OF  OUR  GOVERNMENT 
TO  PAY  THIS  DEBT. 

The  war  was  waged  in  violation  of  the  theory  of  our  govern 
ment  by  consent  in  the  exact  form,  spirit  and  purpose  of  arbi 
trary  government,  to  destroy  the  republican  system. 

How  then,  can  such  a  debt  have  constitutional  force  or  obli 
gation  to  bind  any  one,  since  it  was  made  in  the  interest  of  self- 
destruction,  and  to  pay  for  violence  done  to  and  butchery  of  the 
people. 

In  its  stead  was  a  monarchy  in  everything  but  the  name,  in 
which  the  President  was  guarded  in  the  style  of  the  Czar  and 
Sultan,  with  all  of  the  brutality  of  the  one  and  the  pomp  of  the 
other ;  with  all  of  the  trappings  of  monarchy  and  the  violence 
of  despotism. 

With  the  overthrow  of  our  system  and  theory  of  government,, 
and  the  adoption  of  the  imperial  style  and  military  guard,  the 
most  intimate  friend  of  Washington,  Jefferson  or  Monroe,  would 
have  entirely  failed  to  recognize  the  old  and  familiar  forms  that 
gave  us  characteristic  distinction  everywhere. 


208  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

A  new  and  unique  system  was  substituted.  We  had  the  forms  of 
republican  government  enforced  or  obstructed,  or  both,  as  occasion 
might  demand  or  necessity  might  justify.  It  was  not  republican, 
for  nobody  was  free.  The  citizens  and  soldiers  were  alternately 
arrested,  State  and  military  officers  were  spending  their  terms  in 
guard-houses  or  military  prisons,  as  whim,  interest  or  caprice 
might  suggest,  at  the  will  of  their  masters,  who  were  not  always 
known,  for  it  was  as  difficult  to  learn  who  directed  affairs  as  it 
was  to  know  who  was  loyal.  Everybody  was  conscripted  ; 
everybody  was  an  officer  :  everybody  was  arrested  ;  everybody 
was  removed  from  office;  everybody  was  reinstated  in  turn,  just 
as  the  President  might  be  persuaded  by  the  last  committee  of 
merchants,  ministers,  loyal  leaguers,  free  negroes  or  ruling  mad 
ams  of  the  sanitary  commission  or  sewing  society.  Never  was 
there  such  a  medley  of  tragedy  and  farce,  murder  and  mockery, 
of  grave  pronunciamentos  and  the  most  ridiculous  government 
follies.  Anarchy,  which  knows  no  law,  was  reduced  to  a  system 
by  which  anarchies  were  to  be  let  loose  and  restrained  as  occasion 
might  require,  or  circumstances  might  dictate.  From  the  gov 
ernment  nothing  could  be  known  of  its  character  except  occa 
sionally  an  act  in  lucid  intervals. 

instance  butone  form  of  crime  : 


LETTRE  DE   CACHET  —  OUR  FRENCH   DESPOTISM. 

This  extraordinary  proceeding  is  entirely  unknown  to  the  in 
stitutions  of  this  country,  and  quite  as  great  a  stranger  to  the 
British  Common  Law.  It,  of  course,  could  not  issue  from  our 
courts  of  judicature,  and  is  entirely  unknown  to  the  more  stern, 
though  more  candid,  process  of  military  courts. 

So  utterly  repugnant  to  all  sense  of  justice,  liberality  and  the 
universally  accorded  rights  of  man  is  it,  that  it  has  never  been 
exercised  anywhere  in  the  despotism  of  Europe,  except  very 
rarely  indeed,  before  the  seventeenth  century,  and  then  only  by 
the  most  heartless  of  all  the  European  tyrants. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Louis  the 
Great,  (XIV)  then  in  power,  gave  to  the  French  throne  a  power 
and  magnificence  which  eclipsed  that  of  all  of  his  predecessors. 
His  reign  was  an  era  distinguished  by  great  learning,  fashion 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  209 

and  gaiety.  The  lettres  de  cachet  had  formerly  been  used  to 
delay  the  course  of  justice,  but  during  the  reign  of  this  monarch, 
any  person  who  could  find  access  to  court  —  to  either  the  King 
or  his  Ministers  —  could  obtain  these  lettres;  and  to  gratify 
malice,  or  serve  the  ends  of  mercenary  purposes,  upon  the  most 
trivial  pretexts ;  and  by  this  means  thousands  of  persons  were 
imprisoned  for  life,  or  for  a  term  of  years.  So  monstrous  was 
the  character  of  these  outrages  committed,  that  the  people  were 
intimidated,  money  extorted,  suits  founded  by  injustice,  with 
drawn  dowers,  marriages  made  available,  and,  in  short,  the  most 
intolerable  slavery  and  abject  servitude  which  ever  disgraced 
any  people,  was  quietly  effected  during  the  reign  of  this  French 
Prince. 

But  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XV,  France  was  almost  entire 
ly  engaged  in  war,  and  gave  but  little  attention  to  the  govern 
ment  of  the  people  at  home.  She  lost  the  Canadas  in  a  war  with 
Great  Britain,  and  came  nigh  ruining  the  army,  navy,  treasury, 
and  church,  and  entirely  prostrated  all  that  was  left  of  the  judi 
ciary. 

The  ministers  of  this  monarch  used  these  lettres  to  most  sin 
gular  effect.  Indeed,  they  became  a  matter  of  commerce,  and 
were  openly  and  publicly  sold  by  the  strumpet  of  one  of  the 
ministers  of  the  king.  They  were  also  granted  by  the  king  for 
the  purpose  of  shielding  his  favorites  or  their  friends  from  the 
consequences  of  their  crimes.  They  were  sometimes  bought  to 
rid  a  family  of  heirs  who  stood  immediately  in  the  way  of  an 
expectant  inheritance,  and  for  the  purpose  of  gratifying  spites  in 
family  quarrels.  During  the  contentions  of  the  Mirabeau  fam 
ily,  not  less  than  fifty-nine  lettres  de  cachet  were  issued  by  one 
or  the  other  of  the  family,  of  course,  for  monied  consideration. 
But  the  evils  of  this  extraordinary  proceeding  did  not  stop  with 
these. 

Independent  members  of  Parliament  and  of  the  Magistracy 
were  proscribed  and  punished  by  means  of  these  war  warrants. 
This  corruption  became  enormous,  and  was  in  the  French  history 
what  Jeffrey's  campaign  was  to  England ;  and  when  Louis  the 
XVI.  tried  to  control  and  remedy  it  he  failed. 

Among  all  of  the  evils  and  blessings  of  the  French  Kevolu- 
14 


210  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. . 

tion,  this  one  thing  will  be  worthy  of  eternal  remembrance  — • 
that  it  swept  away  this  monstrous  evil  which  never  had  an  ex 
istence  before  among  civilized  people,  and  which  has  never  been 
since  revived  until  Wm.  H.  Seward,  of  America,  inaugura 
ted  it  as  a  part  of  the  administration  of  the  General  Govern 
ment,  in  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
every  instinct  of  civil  liberty,  and  the  very  genius  of  free  gov 
ernment. 

This  is  the  scandal  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  opprobrium 
of  the  history  of  North  America,  and  it  is  most  remarkable  how 
nearly  in  resemblance  the  use  made  of  this  warrant  by  French 
tyrants  is  to  that  use  made  of  it  by  the  American  tyrant,  whose 
villainy  promises  to  Benedict  Arnold  but  secondary  claims  to 
supreme  infamy  in  American  history. 

Judge  Taney  was  threatened  with  imprisonment  for  rendering 
a  legitimate  judicial  decision  in  a  case  legitimately  before  him. 

Mayor  Barrett,  of  Washington  City,  was  imprisoned  because 
he  would  not  be  the  tool  of  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  for  purely 
mercenary  purposes.  Mr.  Barrett  needs  no  higher  evidence  of 
his  loyalty  to  the  government,  than  his  appointment  as  a  commis 
sioner  to  value  emancipated  slaves,  and  no  nobler  exhibition  of 
his  real  manhood  than  his  refusal  to  accept  the  appointment. 
The  imprisonment  of  innocent  men  all  over  the  country,  to  gratify 
private  malice,  the  arrest  of  whole  legislative  bodies,  the  despot 
ism  of  the  central  power,  in  confining  men  and  withholding  the 
charge  for  which  they  are  confined,  makes  the  analogy  complete 
between  the  use  of  these  lettres  in  France  and  in  America. 

This,  however,  must  be  observed,  that  in  France,  the  lettres 
de  cachet  were  always  allowed  to  be  a  violation  of  those  hered 
itary  and  traditional  rights  of  Frenchmen  which  they  had  always 
enjoyed. 

But  for  the  exercise  of  all  these  extraordinary  powers,  Mr. 
Seward  says  in  his  letter  to  Lord  Lyons,  October  14th,  1861, 
"  That  for  the  purpose  of  quelling  the  insurrection,  the  Presi 
dent  has  the  power  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  when 
ever,  wheresoever,  and  in  whatsoever  extent  *  *  *  in  his 
judgment  it  requires."  And  the  tenor  of  the  Secretary's  arguments 
is  to  prove  that  this  is  in  accordance  with  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE.  211 

The  following  is  perhaps  even  more  extraordinary  than  any 
thing  upon  the  subject.  "  For  the  exercise  of  that  discretion,  he, 
as  well  as  his  advisers,  among  whom  are  the  Secretaries  of  State 
and  of  War,  is  responsible  by  .law  before  the  highest  tribunal  of 
the  Republic,  and  amenable  also  to  the  judgment  of  his  country 
men,  and  the  enlightened  opinion  of  the  civilized  world. 

This  is  the  language  of  Mr.  Seward  to  a  Foreign  Court.  To 
his  countrymen  he  is  scarcely  so  courteous,  but  makes  the  condi 
tion  of  their  release  depend  upon  the  relinquishment  of  their 
right  to  hold  him  and  his  advisers  "responsible  by  law"  before 
the  highest  tribunal  of  the  Republic. 

Whatever  may  be  the  judgment  of  his  countrymen,  "  the  en 
lightened  opinion  of  the  civilized  world  "  shudders  at  the  revi 
val  in  America  of  the  despotism  of  the  17th  and  18th  centuries 
in  France. 

Nor  does  the  plea  of  necessity  make  it  better.  This  plea  is  as 
old  as  crime  itself.  Cain  says  the  slaughter  of  Abel  was  neces 
sary  —  To  what  ?  That  he  might  be  the  only  heir  of  Adam  ; 
the  only  friend  of  God  —  but  not  to  the  triumph  of  right. 
England  pleads  necessity  for  the  oppression  of  Ireland.  Aus 
tria  has  the  same  plea  in  extenuation  of  her  wrongs  to  Hungary. 
So  pleads  Russia  in  her  treatment  of  Poland  —  Necessary  to 
what  ?  The  power  of  the  one  and  the  wrongs  of  the  other. 
But  not  necessary  to  the  cause  of  justice,  the  triumph  of  right. 
What  necessity  for  these  warrants  of  Mr.  Seward  ?  to  put  down 
the  war  ?  No  ;  the  Constitution  can  do  that  amply,  easily  and 
fully.  Necessary  to  make  men  love  the  institutions  of  the  coun 
try  ?  No.  Necessary  for  what  ?  To  keep  tyrants  in  power,  to 
overthrow  the  Government,  to  crush  out  the  spirit  of  Liberty, 
to  invert  the  engine  of  progress  and  drive  back  the  car  of  civil 
ization  three  centuries,  to  hold  council  with  and  learn  at  the  feet 
of  French  tyrants.  Oh,  Lord,  how  long  shall  these  things  be ! 
Shall  not  the  ballot-box  bring  "  the  judgment  of  our  country 
men  "  to  hurl  these  men  from  power  and  welcome  back  the  de 
parted  spirit  of  Liberty  ;  or  shall  not  the  repudiated  debt  teach 
capital  the  danger  of  loaning  money  to  destroy  liberty. 


212  CEIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 


CHAPTEK  Y. 

THE  WAR  DEBT  is  A  BREACH  OF  TRUST. 

A  DEBT  MAY  BE  CONTRACTED  UNDER  SUCH  SYSTEMATIC 
BREACHES  OF  TRUST  UPON  THE  PART  OF  PUBLIC  OFFICERS,  as 

to  have  no  moral  binding  force  upon  the  people,  though  ostensi 
bly  for  the  most  unquestionable  public  good.  This  is  especially 
true  where  the  contractors  were  privy  to  the  fraud. 

The  only  security  that  popular  governments  have  for  the  faith 
ful  performance  of  contracts,  that  nothing  stronger  than  public 
opinion  is  held  for  the  payment  of  debts,  because  no  suits  can  be 
entertained  by  a  sovereign  power  to  coerce  itself. 

When  the  questions  which  originate  wars  and  public  debts, 
largely  divide  the  public  mind,  then  the  justice  and  probabilities 
of  its  liquidation  become  a  matter  just  as  doubtful  as  the  vaga 
ries  of  human  opinion  and  political  integrity.  But  the  question 
may  be  evenly  balanced  in  the  public  judgment.  Public  opin 
ion  may  be  restrained  concerning  it.  It  becomes  still  more  un 
certain,  how  far  the  public  conscience  may  feel  bound  for  the  pay 
ment  ;  but  each  succeeding  decade  with  its  accumulating  respon 
sibilities,  will  feel  less  and  less  bound  in  honor  to  meet  an  obli 
gation  which,  at  the  best,  holds  but  a  feeble  grasp  upon  the  pub 
lic  responsibility. 

When  it  is  clear  that  the  majority  of  a  full  million  and  a  half 
of  actual  voters,  not  engaged  in  war,  were  opposed  to  the  war  as 
a  remedy  for  existing  evils,  or  that  the  debt  and  war  were  both 
frauds  upon  the  public  credulity  and  destructive  of  our  system 
of  government,  then  the  payment  of  the  debt  becomes  impossi 
ble. 

This  is  precisely  the  case  of  our  war  and  war  debt.  Abraham 
Lincoln  reached  the  Presidency  by  a  great  minority  in  both  the 
first  and  second  elections.  In  the  second  election,  the  minority 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  213 

was  even  greater  than  in  the  first,  amounting  to  1,200,000  less 
than  a  majority  of  the  votes  of  the  people,  not  accounting  the  fraud 
and  force,  applied  to  divest  the  election  of  every  attribute  of 

choice. 

But  the  strength  of  this  argument  is  irresistible.  Every  vote 
cast  at  the  election  of  1860,  was  given  to  candidates  pledged  in 
public  professions  of  political  faith,  including  the  ablest  speeches 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  himself,  against  coercion  or  war.  He  had,  in  the 
most  public  manner  avowed,  and  in  the  most  solemn  oaths  sworn 
before  heaven  and  earth,  not  to  interfere  with  the  existing  con 
dition  of  things  in  the  government.  The  right  of  one-half  of 
the  States  to  overrun  and  destroy  the  other  half,  had  been  denied 
by  all  of  the  leading  statesmen,  North  and  South,  in  every  period 
of  our  history,  and  by  the  courts  in  the  exercise  of  their  plenary 
powers. 


214  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

WE  ARE  UNABLE  TO  PAY  THIS  DEBT. 

THERE  is  no  subject  upon  which  even  statesmen  are  so  fre 
quently  the  victims  of  delusion  as  that  of  the  resources  of  their 
own  country.  Whether  in  regard  to  the  relation  which  their 
wealth  bears  to  their  indebtedness,  or  the  relation  which  their 
resources  bear  to  that  of  other  nations ;  and  quite  as  vague  are 
their  notions  about  their  ability  to  pay  enormous  debts.  One 
source  of  this  deception  is  the  value  which  they  attach  to  prop 
erty,  based  upon  the  crazy  inflation  of  the  currency  and  the  cor 
rupt  imaginations  of  speculators  engaged  in  stock-gambling. 

This  delusion  is  not  peculiar  to  the  financiers  of  our  own  age 
and  country.  It  has  been  universal.  Such  is  the  intoxicating 
nature  of  trade  and  commerce  in  the  height  of  a  paper  bubble. 

Just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution,  which 
was  precipitated  by  national  bankruptcy,  and  the  reckless  vio 
lence  which  always  accompanies  bold  loaning  and  extravagant 
living,  even  the  most  illustrious  English  statesman  were  dazzled 
and  carried  away  with  the  grandeur  of  its  profligacy,  and  for  a 
time  believed  the  French  finances  solid  and  immoveable,  because 
the  national  credit  was  pledged  for  its  redemption. 

Edmund  Burke  was  so  completely  captivated  with  Necker's 
theory,  that  when  Necker  wrote  a  history  of  his  political  views 
and  administration,  confessing  his  failure,  and  the  fallacies  of 
his  opinion,  Burke  was  dismayed  and  mortified  at  his  own  sim 
plicity  in  being  the  victim  of  such  hollow  expedients;  nearly 
every  one  of  which  remind  one  of  the  present  times.  Indeed, 
in  all  times,  these  expedients  and  subterfuges  are  the  same. 

The  younger  William  Pitt,  the  most  searching  analytical  mind 
of  his  day,  saw  entirely  through  Necker's  financial  scheme,  and 
the  ruin  that  would  follow  it,  and  in  consequence,  refused  the 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE.  215 

tempting  offer  of  the  hand  of  Necker's  gifted  daughter,  Madame 
de  Stael. 

It  were  amusing  were  it  not  sorrowful,  to  contemplate  the 
picture  which  Secretary  Chase  has  drawn  of  his  financial  plans 
in  the  ruin  of  the  country.  A  complete  detail  of  the  financial 
history  of  the  Treasury  and  the  currency,  with  its  shams,  tricks, 
and  villainies  consequent  upon  them,  practiced  by  himself,  would 
rival  in  romance  the  confessions  of  Barnum  in  the  exhibition  of 
his  Japanese  Mermaid,  Joyce  Heath,  Tom  Thumb,  the  woolly 
horse,  and  "WHAT  is  IT?"; — the  low  artifices  to  which  they 
both  resorted  to  deceive  the  people ;  the  one  in  shows  for  their 
amusement,  the  other  in  falsehoods  to  overthrow  their  liberty. 

We  have  never  duly  considered  the  present  condition  of  our 
resources  since  the  conclusion  of  the  war,  and  the  preliminary 
questions  to  be  settled  before  we  commence  our  calculation. 

1.  The  war  drove  out  of  the  country  thousands  of  millions  of 
capital,  much  of  its  own  bullion,  in  consequence  of  its  general 
unsafety. 

2.  It  destroyed  thousands  of  millions  of  dollars  of  capital  in 
the  Southern  States,  which  could  no  longer  be  taxed. 

3.  The  destruction  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  in  the 
Confederate    States    rendered   unavailable   other    hundreds   of 
millions  of  dollars  in  the  Northern  States,  which  were  depend 
ent  upon  the  South  for  a  market. 

4.  There  has  been  no  increase  of  a  single  article  produced  in 
the  United  States   which  could  be  exported,  or  added  to  the  fi 
nancial  prosperity  of  the  country,  except  kerosene  oil,  which  is 
a  late  discovery,  and  insignificant  matter. 

A  blind,  stupid  and  destructive  fanaticism  assumes  that  our  re 
sources  are  incomparably  greater  than  at  any  time  heretofore. 
This  they  demonstrate  by  the  magnitude  of  our  public  debt, 
which  they  denominate  as  so  much  active  capital ;  and  the  de 
struction  of  public  and  private  property,  which  they  parade  as  a 
triumph  over  treason. 

The  chief  source  of  this  delusion  is  that  they  account  our 
money  as  capital,  when  in  fact,  it  is  the  certified  evidence  of  our 
debt  and  poverty.  The  bonds  held  are  simply  the  amount  of 
debt  which  we  hold  against  ourselves. 


216  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

There  is  no  more  common  expression  or  delusion  in  regard  to 
the  public  debt  than  this,  that  since  the  debt  is  mostly  due 
among  ourselves,  and  brings  as  much  property  from  one  as  they 
take  from  another. 

Tin's  is  not  true,  in  fact,  any  more  than  that  it  is  an  argument. 
The  bonds  are  not  all  due  among  ourselves;  but  upon  the 
contrary,  they  were  directly  sold  to  European  capitalists, 
as  far  as  it  was  possible  to  get  them  into  that  market,  where 
they  are  quoted  from  the  market  reports  of  London,  Amster 
dam,  and  Paris ;  but  millions  of  these  bonds  were  bought  in 
America  by  European  capitalists,  and  re-invested  in  bank  stocks 
under  European  auspices. 

It  was  this  investment  of  European  capital  in  American  se 
curities  which  was  the  most  complete  solution  of  the  visit  of  the 
European  capitalists  to  this  country,  which  excited  as  much  curios 
ity,  and  elicited  as  much  parade,  as  did  Japanese  Tommy's  ad 
vent  into  the  city  of  New  York. 

It  is  the  most  disgusting  form  of  balderdash  to  maintain  that 
poor  men  own  bonds,  or  any  other  interest-bearing  securities  in 
America,  any  more  than  in  Europe. 

The  mere  fact  that  some  of  these  bonds  are  the  property  of 
American  citizens,  makes  it  in  no  sense  different  from  their 
ownership  abroad.  Once  cast  upon  the  market,  they  will  seek 
the  idle  capital  of  the  world,  and  absorb  it. 

The  debt  is  an  offset  to  the  resources  of  the  country,  and 
must  be  deducted  to  their  full  amount  from  them  in  the  calcu 
lation  of  our  wealth.  It  injures  every  department  of  wealth, 
commerce,  manufactures,  agriculture  and  navigation.  It  with 
draws  from  active  business  to  positive  idleness,  all  of  the  capital 
to  the  full  extent  of  the  funding  system. 

THE   CONVERSION   OF    THE    BONDS    INTO   BANK    NOTES    IS   THE 
DESTRUCTION   OF   THE   RESOURCES   OF   THE   PEOPLE. 

Not  one  dollar  passes  out  of  the  bonds  into  National  bank 
currency  which  does  not  cost  the  public  nearly  one  hundred  per 
cent,  in  interest  on  the  bonds  interest,  on  the  bank  notes  and  the 
ruinous  premium  paid  upon  the  depreciated  currency  with  which 
they  bought  their  bonds,  besides  the  extravagant  bonus  which 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  217 

was  given  as  an  inducement  to  purchase  them.  Every  bond 
holder  realizes  this  amount  of  money  for  his  bonds.  Against 
such  profits  in  investment  there  can  be  no  successful  competition. 
Railroads  cannot  be  built.  How  is  it  possible  for  them  to  offer 
an  equivalent  security  to  these  bonds  ?  Commerce  is  checked, 
because  the  bonds  are  proof  against  ship  wreck ;  and  who  can  in 
vest  in  the  legitimate  trade  of  the  ocean  against  such  odds.  The 
Western  people  cannot  hope  for  the  usual  improvement  of  their 
lands,  because  no  investment  in  improvements  can  justify  the  pay 
ment  of  more  than  six  per  cant.,  and  scarcely  that  amount  can  be 
realized  in  agricultural  pursuits  with  the  entire  destruction  of 
our  exports  and  commerce,  and  a  most  extraordinary  increase  of 
our  current  government  expenses.  Our  standing  army  is  quad 
rupled.  The  expenses  of  each  soldier  is  twice  as  much  as  for 
merly.  The  clerical  force  of  every  department  is  more  than 
duplicated.  This  is  the  financial  condition  of  the  country  and  a 
fair  exhibit  of  its  resources  and  capacity  to  liquidate  its  debt.  It 
is  a  most  notable  fact,  that  during  the  administration  of  Mr. 
Buchanan,  the  chief  tangible  accusation  against  him,  was  the 
extravagance  with  which  he  administered  the  government  and 
the  exceeding  great  difficulty  with  which  the  money  was  raised, 
and  that  he  left  the  treasury  empty  at  the  end  of  his  term. 

Mr.  Buchanan  left  the  country  free  from  debt,  in  the  most 
healthy  industrial  condition ;  the  people  not  only  in  comfortable, 
but  in  affluent  circumstances.  Such  is  the  contrast. 

THE   WEALTH   OF   THE   COUNTRY. 

What  has  been  added  to  the  productive  wealth  of  the  country 
to  meet  the  additional  expenditures  ?  It  may  be  safely  assumed 
that  no  one  branch  of  industry  has  been  increased  in  the  last  five 
years,  except  that  used  or  destroyed  in  the  military  service,  con 
sisting  of  arms,  ammunition,  artillery,  &c. 

WE   HAVE  LOST  WITHOUT   ANY  COMPENSATION  WHATEVER. 

2,600,000  able-bodied  men  were  taken  from  actual  produc 
tive  business ;  from  the  plough,  the  loom,  the  anvil  and  build 
ings  of  the  country,  whose  daily  labor  added  millions  to  the 
stock  of  American  capital. 

The  horses,  mules,  cattle,  sheep,  hogs,  wagons,  gears,  neces- 


218  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

sary  to  the  support  of  such  armies  during  four  years  of  uninter 
rupted  and  constantly  augmenting  warfare,  the  entire  value  of 
which  has  been  scarcely  less  than  $5,000,000,000,  which  may  be 
added  to  the  calculation,  but  does  not  present  the  full  extent  of 
the  loss  we  suffer. 

No  nation  or  man  has  ever  trampled  with  impunity  upon  the 
clearly  written  law  of  God,  or  the  well-defined  rights  of  man, 
without  answering  directly  for  his  crime. 

The  law  of  God  is  a  crystal  mirror  which  reflects  back  upon, 
the  soul  of  every  rational  being,  the  exact  character  of  the  mo 
tives  of  his  heart  and  the  action  of  his  life.  No  man,  nation  nor 
age,  ever  committed  a  crime  or  perpetrated  an  enormity,  which 
did  not  fling  its  monstrous  image  back  upon  its  guilty  perpetra 
tor.  Nor  have  we  escaped  in  either  morals  or  finances,  this 
clearly  marked  law  of  the  living  God.  When  Sheridan's  high 
waymen  carried  the  torch  through  Virginia,  and  the  hordes  of 
Sherman's  incendiaries  were  turned  loose  upon  the  defenceless 
people  of  Georgia,  the  United  States  were  the  sufferers.  The 
cotton-fields  destroyed  made  our  corn-fields  worthless  and  the 
very  same  communities  which  sent  armies  to  burn  cotton-fields, 
had  to  burn  their  corn-fields  for  fuel. 

The  poor  man  in  the  army  burned  the  clothes  of  his  family, 
under  the  delusion  that  he  was  impoverishing  the  cotton  planters, 
and  did  not  discover  his  mistake  until  he  returned  from  the  war 
and  found  that  the  cotton  goods  which  he  used  to  buy  for  ten 
cents,  now  cost  him  fifty.  He  was  wild  with  excitement  over  the 
iires  that  swept  down  the  sugar-house,  and  never  dreamed  of  his 
own  suffering,  until  his  children  were  crying  for  syrups  which  he 
could  not  buy. 

Such  has  been  the  complete  work  of  destruction  and  the  entire 
mutilation  of  our  available  resources  that  nearly  every  article 
which  secured  to  us  the  balance  of  trade  abroad,  hemp,  cotton, 
rice,  sugar  and  tobacco,  with  tar,  resin  and  turpentine,  was  des 
troyed  by  our  own  hands,  and  our  resources  cut  off  by  our  own 
folly. 

THE   PROCESS    OF    EXHAUSTION". 

The  cotton  plant  supplied  the  people  with  its  fibre  for  clothing. 
The  regular  supply  of  this  staple  was  bought  by  the  people  of 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  219 

the  North  and  West,  and  paid  for  by  the  products  of  their  cattle, 
horses,  hogs,  sheep  and  agriculture. 

When  the  Southern  States  ceased  to  produce  cotton,  the 
Northern  people  had  to  rely  upon  the  production  of  wool.  The 
ancient  habits  of  the  American  Revolution  were  revived  in  the 
Southern  States.  Women  went  to  the  loom  and  the  spinning- 
wheel,  and  every  thriving  household  became  a  primitive  manufac 
tory. 

In  the  Northern  States  woolen  manufactories  of  great  extent 
were  kept  in  operation,  and  the  demand  for  wool  became  ab- 
sorbant.  In  less  than  four  years,  the  whole  agricultural  aspect 
of  the  country  was  changed. 

Sheep  took  the  place  of  horses  and  cattle  in  the  mountain  dis 
tricts,  and  supplanted  the  culture  of  swine  in  the  Western  States, 
until  horses  commanded  the  most  extravagant  prices,  and  neat 
cattle  sold  at  the  former  prices  for  hogs,  and  a  single  hog  sold  at 
the  price  formerly  paid  for  a  yoke  of  oxen  or  an  ordinary  horse. 
This  process  of  depletion  went  on,  until  a  famine  stared  the  peo 
ple  in  the  face.  The  introduction  of  sheep  into  the  country 
drove  the  cattle  out,  for  neither  cattle  or  horses  will  thrive  in  the 
same  pasturage  with  sheep.  During  all  this  time  of  general 
depletion,  the  people  believed  themselves  in  the  height  of  pros 
perity.  They  mistook  their  own  debt  for  their  own  wealth,  as 
though  the  mortgage  upon  their  farms,  created  by  government 
liabilities,  was  actual  wealth.  This  delusion,  kept  up  by  the 
system  of  Secretary  Chase,  had  a  powerful  agency  in  the  pro 
traction  of  the  war,  and  did  much  to  conciliate  those  time-serving 
statesmen  who  knew  that  ruin  must  follow  such  political  econo 
my,  but  hoped  to  indemnify  themselves  for  all  losses  in  the  gen 
eral  plunder  in  which  they  might  share. 

In  addition  to  the  men  in  military  life,  the  war  employed 
quite  three  millions  of  producers  out  of  a  population  of  twenty 
millions.  The  labor  and  wages  of  this  vast  army  of  men  would 
have  built  railroads  as  a  net-work  in  the  States  from  which  they 
were  dragged  away.  Their  idleness  would  have  been  a  calamity, 
a  severe  blow,  from  which  it  Avould  require  a  great  State  an  age 
to  recover.  If  these  men  had  been  idle,  our  ships  of  Avar  safely 
anchored,  and  our  costly  armaments  sca^ered  to  the  winds,  the 


220  CEIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAK. 

loss  would  have  been  comparatively  small ;  but  added  to  this  was 
the  loss  to  the  whole  country  of  the  labor  of  nearly  one  million, 
of  men  during  the  same  period.  The  cost  of  their  arms,  ammu 
nition,  artillery,  clothing  and  all  incidental  expenses  to  defend 
against  this  invasion  of  the  vast  army  arrayed  in  the  North,  by 
both  sea  and  land,  added  to  the  entire  destruction  of  the  exports 
of  cotton,  rice,  tobacco,  sugar,  molasses  and  everything  grown  and 
exported  in  the  Confederate  States.  The  daily  occurring  losses 
from  idle  men  and  idle  lands,  with  the  daily  accruing  expenses 
of  military  rule,  are  increasing  these  losses  and  impairing  our 
power  to  recuperate  our  exhaustive  system. 

WHAT   THE   SOUTH   HAS   LOST. 

Matthew  F.  Maury,  who,  at  the  commencement  of  the  rebel 
lion,  was  in  charge  of  the  National  Observatory  in  Washing 
ton,  has  written  a  three  column  letter  to  the  London  Morning 
Herald,  in  which  he  gives  the  following  estimate  of  the  losses 
of  the  South  caused  by  the  war : 

<e  I  estimate  the  amount  of  the  pecuniary  losses  incurred  by 
the  people  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  in  their  late  attempt  at 
independence,  to  be  not  less  than  $7,000,000,000  (seven  thousand 
millions  of  dollars)  viz : 

By  emancipation $3,000,000,000 

Expenses  of  the  war 2,000,000,000 

Destruction  of  private  property 1,000,000,000 

Additional  taxation  imposed  by  the  victor  for 
payment  of  Federal  war  debt,  say  $10,- 
000,000  per  annum,  equal  to  interest  on...  1,000,000,000 

Total $7,000,000,000 

This  loss  falls  upon  less  than  eight  millions  of  whites,  who 
have,  moreover,  in  addition,  to  contribute  largely  to  the  support 
of  the  four  millions  of  blacks  who  have  been  suddenly  turned 
loose  among  them,  and  who,  for  the  present  at  least,  are  incapa 
ble  of  caring  for  themselves. 

This  $7,000,000,000  of  money  was  the  accumulated  wealth 
of  centuries ;  it  constituted  nearly  the  whole  industrial  plan  and 
capital  of  the  South. 


CHIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  221 


THE   DEBT    COULD   NOT   BE   PAID    IF   IT    WERE   JUST   AND 
DESIRABLE   TO    PAY    IT. 

1.  The  experience  of  the  world  has  been  that  no  people  have 
been  able  to  lay  up  anything  above  their  current  expenses,  and 
such  repairs  and  improvements  as  the  increase  of  population  and 
the  accumulating  demands  of  society  render  necessary. 

2.  That  the  increase  of  population  of  every  country  brings 
with  it  a  pro  rata  diminution  of  wealth  per  capita. 

3.  That  every  generation  of  people  are  better  able  to  pay  the 
debts  of  their  own  creation  than  the  generations  which  succeed 
them. 

4.  That  the  growing  age  of  every  country  carries  with  it  more 
than  an  equal  growth  of  expenditures,  and  to  that  extent  inca 
pacitates  it  to  pay  the  debts  of  its  own  creation,  and  makes  the 
payment  of  prior  debts  impossible. 

5.  This  has  always  been  the  condition  of  society  and  will  con 
tinue  to  be. 

6.  Each  generation  will  have  its  wars  and  consequent  expen 
ses,  and  cannot,  nor  ought  not  to  bear  the  expenses  of  wars  of  pre 
ceding  generations. 

There  are  three  ways  of  disposing  of  such  a  debt,  each  of 
which  has  its  conveniences. 

1.  By  repudiating  the  obligations  of  the  debt  entirely,  which 
would  bring  the  burden  of  the  evil  upon  the  rich,  who  have 
hoarded  their  means  and  invested  them  in  government  credits. 

2.  By  funding  the  debt  and  paying  the  interest  on  it  after  the 
manner  of  British  debt.     This  impoverishes  the  poor  and  places 
them  where  the  British  have  left  their  poor,  in  perpetual  servi 
tude.     The  funding  system  has  been  elsewhere  examined ;  or 

3.  By  abolishing   the  funding  system  and  banking  system, 
built  upon  it,  freeing  the  people  from  its  onerous  burdens  and 
in  its  stead  issuing  certificates,  entitling  the  holder  to  such  share 
pro  rata,  as  he  may  be  entitled  to  upon  a  final  settlement,  in 
which  the  public  lands  or  a  part  of  them,  may  be  hypothecated 
for  the  redemption  of  these  certificates. 

The  liberty  of  the  people  demands  an  immediate  abolition  of 
the  whole  funding  system. 


222  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENTS  CANNOT  ENFORCE  THE  PAYMENT  OF  SUCH  A 

DEBT. 

TlIE  PAYMENT  OF  ALL  PUBLIC  DEBTS,  WHETHER  OF  BONDS 
OB  OTHERWISE,  IS  DEPENDANT  ENTIRELY  UPON  THE  WILL  OF 
EACH  SUCCESSIVE  CONGRESS,  WHICH  MAY  OR  MAY  NOT  APPRO 
PRIATE  MONIES  OR  LEVY  TAXES  TO  MEET  THE  PAYMENT  OF 
INTEREST  OR  TAXATION. 

The  bond  may  be  just ;  the  debt  made  out  in  due  form  ;  the 
case  may  go  before  the  general  court  of  claims,  and  be  adjudged 
as  binding,  but  Congress  may  decline  appropriations  to  pay  the 
debt.  "Who  can  or  will  force  Congress  ?  "What  mandamus  can 
force  them  to  levy  taxes  ?  Even  a  State  cannot  be  sued  on  her 
bonds,  or  levies  of  execution  be  made  upon  her  property  by  the 
highest  courts  of  the  country. 

But  who  elect  the  Congress  of  the  United  States?  The 
people  —  the  debtors,  who  are  bounden  in  their  property  and  in 
their  labor  by  this  mortgage ;  who  will  every  day  feel  it  the 
more  with  the  increasing  debt  and  advancing  time. 

CONSTITUTIONAL   AMENDMENTS  WOULD   NOT    GIVE  MORE 

PERMANENT  SECURITY  TO  THE  ULTIMATE  PAYMENT  OF  THE 
BONDS,  NOR  WOULD  AN  OATH  TAKEN  TO  KEEP  THE  CON 
STITUTION  MAKE  THE  BONDS  MORE  VALID,  OR  REPUDIATION 
LESS  CERTAIN. 

What  provision  of  the  Constitution  was  ever  more  sacred  to 
personal  liberty,  national  character,  and  the  distinction  of  race, 
than  the  great  writ  of  right  to  Anglo-Americans. 

It  came  down  to  us  hallowed  by  the  benedictions  of  all  that 
was  great,  learned,  noble  and  illustrious,  in  English  literature, 
law,  blood  and  valor.  The  purest  Anglo-Saxon  blood  had 
stained  the  execution-block  in  atonement  of  its  violation.  In 


CRIMES   OP  THE   CIVIL   WAR.  223 

the  church,  it  was  part  of  the  religion  of  the  establishment, 
which  had  saved  deans,  prebendaries,  and  prelates  from  persecu 
tion,  disgrace  and  death ;  dukes  and  earls,  who  found  their  no 
bility  too  feeble  to  protect  their  persons  against  violence,  and 
their  characters  from  infamy,  fled  for  refuge,  to  lay  hold  upon 
the  hope  which  was  set  before  them  in  the  writ  of  habeas  cor 
pus.  The  poorest  vagabond  upon  English  soil  inherited  this 
protection  as  he  did  the  pure  breeze  of  the  ocean,  which  mingled 
with  the  first  breath  that  he  drew.  To  Americans,  it  was  older 
and  more  sacred  than  the  Constitution,  which  came  not  to 
abridge,  but  to  secure  more  perfectly  the  rights  of  man  contract 
ed  by  monarchy.  Yet  notwithstanding  these  safeguards  of  lib 
erty,  secured  by  the  fire  kindled  on  its  hallowed  altars,  and 
flaming  around  its  adamantine  walls,  the  habeas  corpus  is 
no  longer  an  American  writ,  secured  to  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States  by  law. 

The  essential  liberties  of  man,  the  apparently  unapproacha 
ble  character  of  his  safeguard,  the  sanction  of  the  highest 
courts,  nor  the  solemn  oaths  daily  repeated  by  public  officers, 
from  the  President  downward,  offers  not  the  least  security  to  the 
citizen,  or  lends  efficiency  to  habeas  corpus. 

The  Constitution  itself  has  been  avowedly  but  the  servant  of 
necessity,  to  be  laid  away  at  any  time,  or  to  be  used  only  as  a 
pretext  for  making  war  upon  everything  and  everybody  who 
become  obnoxious  to  those  in  power ;  or  stood  in  the  way  of  some 
favorite  scheme  of  usurpation  or  plunder.  After  six  years'  ex 
perience  of  daily  recurring  crime  and  suffering,  from  the  absence 
of  a  government  to  protect  the  people,  it  is  the  wildest  folly  and 
most  alarming  madness  to  calculate  upon  constitutional  guaran 
ties  to  enforce  an  odious  and,  each  day  growing  more  obnoxious, 
debt.  The  wisdom  of  the  hope  of  the  ultimate  payment  of  this 
debt,  is  not  greatly  enhanced  by  the  recollection  of  the  succes 
sive  repudiations  which  have  marked  each  month  of  the  passing 
four  years  of  blood  and  crime,  bankruptcy  and  ruin. 

It  is  an  excusable  episode  in  this  chapter  to  allude  to  the  ab 
surdity  which  brings  forth  daily  amendments  to  the  Constitution 
just  when  the  existing  organic  law  seems  to  operate  with  binding 
force  upon  nobody,  and  to  improve  the  system  of  oaths  and  im- 


224  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAE. 

provise  new  ones  at  a  time  when  the  most  solemn  oaths  are  ridi 
culed  as  a  farce,  and  perjury  enters  into  the  very  essence  of  the 
political  party  organizations  of  the  ruling  power  of  the  country. 
It  is  but  fair  dealing  with  the  bondholders,  to  honestly  warn 
them  that  their  securities  are  held  by  the  most  uncertain  of  all 
tenures,  the  never  changing  popular  will  of  a  country  in  a  period 
of  stormy  revolution  not  yet  concluded,  the  ultimate  direction  of 
which  is  unfathomable  as  chaos  and  uncertain  as  the  trade  winds. 

THE  SPIEIT  OF  THE  AGE  HAS  GEOWN  AGAINST  THE  COL 
LECTION  OF  DEBTS  BY  FOECE.  Imprisonment  for  debt  has 
been  abolished  in  the  country,  and  the  repeal  of  all  laws  for  the 
collection  of  debts,  has  been  ably  urged  by  eminent  philanthro 
pists  and  statesmen  of  accredited  ability. 

Homestead  laws  and  laws  of  exemption  of  property,  real  and 
personal,  from  execution,  exhibit  the  true  idea  of  popular  senti 
ment  and  opinion,  upon  the  payment  of  debts  which  virtually 
enslave  the  people. 

An  amendment  to  the  Constitution  will  be  practically  void,  de 
claring  that  the  VALIDITY  OF  THE  PUBLIC  DEBT  OF  THE  UNI 
TED  STATES,  AUTHOEIZED  BY  LAW,  INCLUDING  DEBTS  INCUE- 

EED  FOE  PAYMENT  OF  PENSIONS  AND  BOUNTIES  FOE  SEEVICE 
IN  SUPPEESSING  INSUEEECTION  OE  EEBELLON,  SHALL  NOT 
BE  QUESTIONED. 

This  proposed  amendment  adds  no  new  binding  legal  force  to 
the  old  provisions  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  but  opens  up 
many  new  questions  for  the  future  adjudications  of  courts,  which 
add  nothing  to  the  security  of  the  bondholders  but  imperil  their 
claims. 

It  will  be  impossible  to  establish  the  fact  of  either  rebellion  or 
insurrection  in  the  United  States,  where  the  parties  were  recog 
nized  as  belligerants  by  the  home  and  foreign  POWEES,  and  the 
SOVEEEIGN  and  independent  existence  of  the  States  was  the  cor 
ner-stone  of  the  Union. 

These  questions  once  raised,  will  be  discussed  with  a  practical 
view,  and  the  entire  change  of  interests  involved  will  carry  with 
it  the  change  of  opinions.  Then  the  beautiful  combination  of 
potential  words  will  be  quite  non-efficient  to  secure  the  payment 
of  the  bonds.  It  is  upon  the  fickle  goddess  of  public  opinion 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAK.  225 

that  these  bonds  must  rely  for  redemption  and  ultimate  payment. 
The  same  public  opinion  which  poisoned  Socrates  for  teaching 
atheism  to  the  youth  of  Athens,  and  then  worshipped  him  as  a 
god ;  the  very  same  which  "  cried  crucify  him,  and  release  unto 
us  Barabbas" ;  that  followed  Robespierre  through  his  triumphal 
march  of  blood  and  crime,  cheering  him  with  loud  hosannas  on 
the  way,  and  executing  him  at  the  finale  of  his  career,  is  that 
which  makes  and  unmakes  man  and  empires  in  the  same  breath  • 
the  bonds,  if  redeemed  at  all,  must  be  paid  by  appropriations 
from  the  public  treasury.  Appropriations  must  be  raised  by 
taxes  levied  by  Congress,  and  Congress  is  elected  by  the  people. 
These  two  questions  recur  with  amazing  force  to  the  mind : 

1st.  By  what  power  will  you  force  Congress  to  legislate  appro 
priations  for  the  payment  of  a  debt  which  they  determine  not 
to  pay  ? 

2d.  How  will  you  force  the  people  to  elect  a  Congress  favor 
able  to  the  payment  of  such  a  debt,  if  they  are  determined  not 
to  do  it  ? 

When  the  terrible  issue  comes  upon  the  people,  the  conflict 
between  the  unyielding  pressure  of  debt  and  taxation  and  the 
evanescent  fumes  of  party  spirits,  every  minor  objection  will 
be  met  at  the  threshold. 

The  Constitutional  Amendment  is  the  worst,  and  for  the  bond 
holder,  the  most  unreliable  of  all  his  hopes.  Experience  has 
taught,  at  the  most  terrible  rates  of  tuition,  to  the  unhappy  people 
of  America,  that  Constitutional  provisions  have  failed  to  re 
strain  the  most  aggravated  violation  of  its  own  reserved  powers, 
and  for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  positive  obligations,  has  been 
entirely  inoperative.  Only  one  instance  need  be  cited  in  illus 
tration  of  this  argument: 

The  duty  of  Congress  to  establish  uniform  laws  upon  the  sub 
ject  of  bankruptcy  throughout  the  United  States,  which  to  this 
day,  with  all  of  the  combined  influence  of  business  working  in 
its  favor,  has  not  been  permanently  done,  though  several  times 
attempted. 


.  15 


226  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

No  ONE  GENERATION  CAN  BIND  ITS  SUCCESSORS  TO  PAY  ITS  DEBTS. 

BY  WHAT  EIGHT  CAN  ANY  ONE  GENERATION  CONTRACT  TO 
ENSLAVE  SUCCESSIVE  GENERATIONS,  AND  MORTGAGE  THE  LA 
BOR  OF  FUTURE  CENTURIES,  TO  PAY  A  DEBT  CREATED  TO  SA 
TIATE  HATE  AND  AGGRANDIZE  A  LAWLESS  CUPIDITY  ? 

All  just  debts  are  based  upon  mutual  honor  and  mutual  ben 
efit;  upon  the  QUID  PRO  QUO;  but  the  very  essence  of  the 
contract  is  that  both  parties  are  capable  of  contracting,  and  give 
a  rational  assent  to  the  obligations  which  bind  them. 

WHAT  is  A  DEBT  ?  "  Any  kind  of  a  just  demand. "  (Bouvier 
Dictionary.)  It  is  that  obligation  which  one  person  may  volun 
tarily  lay  himself  under  to  another  to  be  computed  by  the  stand 
ards  of  value  then  in  vogue. 

The  voluntary  repudiation  of  a  just  debt  is  no  less  a  crime 
than  the  robbery  of  honest  creditors  by  any  other  means  of  fraud 
or  force. 

A  contract  cannot  be  voluntary  or  of  binding  obligation  upon 
the  next  genaration,  which  has  been  entered  into  by  this  gener 
ation.  It  is  impossible ;  the  contract  had  no  consent  of  the  party 
upon  whom  the  obligation  falls. 

To  this  rule,  founded  in  justice,  there  can  be  no  variations, 
except  in  the  following  cases : 

1st.  When  a  debt  shall  have  been  contracted  for  the  erection 
of  some  public  improvement  necessary  to  the  permanent  admin 
istration  of  justice,  or  the  maintenance  of  law  among  the  people, 
such  as  court  houses,  jails,  &c. 

2d.  A  canal  dug  or  railroad  built  at  the  public  expense,  fas 
tened  upon  the  property  of  the  country,  inures  to  the  benefit  of 
posterity,  and  is  the  representative  to  future  generations  of  the 
energy,  industry,  genius  and  enterprize  of  their  ancestry.  But 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  227 

the  most  magnificent  monuments  ever  reared  to  the  honor  of 
human  genius  and  mechanical  skill,  have  been  justly  accounted 
too  costly  for  the  endorsement  and  redemption  of  future  genera 
tions.  But  in  all  such  cases  the  creditors  may  have  justly  no 
other  security  for  the  payment  of  what  may  remain  due  upon  it, 
than  that  which  is  afforded  in  the  value,  use,  and  profits  of  the 
public  improvement  itself. 

This  maxim  must  hold  good  in  all  just  governments.  A 
contract  made  by  past  generations  cannot  even  bind  the  honor  of 
the  present  generation,  who  may  have  declared  against  the  justice 
of  the  act  for  which  the  debt  has  been  contracted.  It  may  have 
been  a  vision  or  a  whim,  in  which  the  persons  engaged  by  contract 
robbed  the  public.  It  may  have  been  unjust  or  unnecessary. 

What  is  true  in  the  private  affairs  of  men  must  be  true  of 
their  public  matters,  since  the  public  is  but  the  aggregate  of  the 
private.  *  If  a  banker  builds  a  great  house  for  his  business,  or  a 
miller  establishes  his  mill  at  great  expense  and  involves  a  debt, 
which  he  is  unable  to  liquidate,  no  one  dreams  of  entailing  this 
debt  upon  his  children,  although  his  estate  should  pay  but  a 
trifling  portion  of  the  encumbrance  which  passes  away  with  his 
property.  The  son  can,  in  no  sense,  be  responsible,  because  he  had 
no  voice  in  the  contract ;  and  elects  to  waive  his  rights  in  the  in 
heritance,  and  is  under  no  obligation  to  consider  the  action  of 
his  father  as  binding  upon  his  honor  or  conscience.  This  is 
the  law  of  every  free  country ;  freedom  demands  this  much, 
otherwise  the  son  would  be  a  slave  to  the  improvidence  of  the 
father.  A  very  few  generations  would  create  caste  in  society, 
that  would  make  slavery  absolute,  which  time  could  not  efface 
without  revolution. 

What  may  not  be  done  by  the  individual,  may  not  justly  be 
done  by  the  government. 

The  golden  rule,  "  whatsoever  ye  would  have  men  do  unto 
you,  do  ye  even  so  unto  them,"  was  given  for  nations  as  well  as 
for  men,  and  is  alike  obligatory  upon  both.  There  is  no  appli 
cation  of  the  principle  that  "  all  just  powers  of  government  are 
derived  from  the  consent  of  the  governed/'  more  forcible  or  just 
than  to  that  of  taxation. 

No  ONE  GENERATION  OF  MEN  HAVE  THE  RIGHT  OF  CONTRACT, 


228  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

OK  CAN  BIND  THE  SUCCEEDING  GENERATIONS  TO  PAY  A  DEBT 
CONTRACTED  TO  MAINTAIN  ANY  RELIGIOUS  OR  POLITICAL 
PARTY,  OR  ANY  SYSTEM  OF  RELIGION  AND  POLITICS. 

1.  Every  system  of  government  is  comparatively  good  or  evil, 
as  it  expresses  the  wishes  of  the  people,  who  are  the  source  of 
just  power;  or  as  it  conforms  or  disagrees  with  those  funda 
mental  self-evident  rights  of  man  which  are  elevated  above  the 
legitimate  reach  of  legislation,  and  the  violation  of  which  is  an 
unpardonable  trespass  upon  the  prerogative  of  human  nature. 

2.  Each  generation  for  itself  has  the  right  to  make,  alter, 
amend,  or  conform  the  existing  systems  to  its  will,  is  under  per 
sonal  obligations  to  pay  all  of  the  expenses  incident  to  and  con 
sequent  upon  the  conduct  or  change  of  the  government. 

The  reasons  for  this  are  two-foid  and  apparent.  First,  they 
are  the  only  persons  interested  in  the  change,  for  if  the  generation 
which  preceded  us,  are  not  competent  judges  of  the  laws* for  this 
generation,  how  is  it  possible  for  us  to  be  infallible  arbiters  of 
the  opinions  of  the  next  generation  ?  and  by  what  right  do  they 
assume  to  mortgage  their  soul,  understanding  and  conscience,  to 
particular  doctrines  in  advance,  and  mortgage  their  labor  to  the 
heirs  of  bondholders  in  all  future  time.  The  principle  is  not 
only  absurd  and  dangerous,  but  it  is  the  most  complete  system 
of  slavery  imaginable,  by  which  each  generation  in  advance  of 
its  birth,  is  assigned  to  labor ;  the  kind,  amount,  when,  where 
and  how,  beforehand  —  to  pay  the  expense  of  the  riot,  profligacy, 
debauchery  of  thieving  contractors,  loathesome  prostitutes,  and 
effeminate  military  officers.  The  immediate  offspring  of  the 
shavers,  usurers,  extortioners  and  misers,  who  grew  fat  upon  the 
blood  of  the  sires,  the  grief  of  their  mothers  and  the  destitution 
of  themselves,  now  doomed  to  perpetual  taxation. 

The  second  reason  is  even  stronger  than  the  first.  It  is  the 
duty  of  every  man  to  pay  for  what  he  receives.  This  is  the 
touchstone  of  honesty  itself,  that  he  does  it  willingly.  Then  they 
who  work  a  violent  revolution  are,  by  common  consent,  the  only 
ones  benefited  by  it ;  they  are  under  obligations  to  defray  its 
expenses,  and  immediate  levies  of  tax  as  the  revolution  transpires, 
is  the  only  legitimate  mode  of  paying  it. 

The  old  maxim,  "  in  times  of  peace  prepare  for  war/'  was  the 


CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  229 

fixed  law  of  governments  among  our  fathers,  and  each  generation 
transmitted  to  its  successor  a  treasury  filled  with  money,  as  the 
means  of  carrying  on  wars  in  national  defence,  which  was  often 
diverted  to  the  purpose  of  civil  wars  and  squandered  in  the  en 
slavement  and  degradation  of  the  people. 

But  in  such  a  war  as  that  which  has  just  closed,  payment  of 
the  debt  resolves  itself  into  two  very  plain  questions.  1.  If  it  has 
been  a  blessing  to  the  people  or  a  public  benefit,  then  those  re 
ceiving  the  benefit  ought  not  to  hesitate  cheerfully  to  bear  the  ex 
penses  ;  much  more,  they  ought  to  forgive  the  indebtedness  in 
curred  as  held  by  them  in  notes  or  bonds. 

2.  But  if  the  revolution  is  a  great  public  curse,  and  has  de 
stroyed  all  that  is  sacred  in  principle  and  desirable  in  property, 
how  wicked  a  crime  must  it  be  against  natural  justice  to  ask  an 
injured  people  to  pay  a  debt  consequent  upon  a  contract,  forced 
upon  them  to  consummate  their  own  degradation,  slavery  and 
utter  ruin. 

NO   DEBT   INCURRED   BY   A   WAR  OF   ANY   KIND  CAN  POSSIBLY 
BIND   THE   SUCCEEDING   GENERATION. 

1st.  They  have  not  consented  to  it,  which  is  the  essence  of  the 
contract,  and  without  which,  the  parties  held  obliged  .to  pay,  are 
in  the  very  same  condition  of  the  traveller  met  by  the  highway 
men,  who  cry,  "  Stand  and  deliver  "  —  "  Your  money  or  your 
life."  It  is  the  application  of  force  purely  as  a  means  of  taking 
and  applying  property. 

2nd.  The  war  which  may  seem  just  to  the  fathers,  may  seem 
unjust  to  the  children,  and  the  children  may  contract  a  debt 
equal  to  that  contracted  by  the  fathers  for  the  purpose  of  sub 
verting  the  very  system  established  by  them,  and  leave  a  double 
debt  upon  the  grandchildren,  who  disagree  with  both  the  father 
and  grandfather,  and  believe  that  both  wars  were  unnecessary, 
unjust,  cruel  and  disgraceful,  and  that  their  causes  might  have 
been  readily  removed  by  the  slightest  forbearance  and  the  sim 
plest  appeal  to  reason. 

3d.  If  the  claims  upon  which  a  transmitted  debt  are  based  be 
the  self-sacrifice  of  those  who  contracted  it,  then  let  it  be  verified 
by  the  sacrifice ;  for  if  the  debt  is  transmitted,  there  has  been  no 


230  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAE. 

equal  sacrifice.  It  is  a  sacrifice  of  the  lives  of  the  poor,  but  not 
of  the  wealth  of  the  rich.  If  it  were  just  and  necessary  that  the 
poor  people,  who  always  fight  the  battles  of  a  country,  should 
sacrifice  their  lives,  how  much  greater  the  necessity  that  the  rich 
should  sacrifice  their  property  in  a  common  cause.  But  how  very 
unjust  is  it  that  the  property  and  labor  of  the  surviving  soldiers 
and  their  children,  in  all  time  to  come,  should  be  held  in  perpet 
ual  mortgage  to  pay  the  debt  and  accruing  interest  to  those  who 
made  merchandise  of  the  blood  and  treasures  of  their  comrades 
and  parents.  These  reasons  are  not  only  just,  but  they  are  con 
clusive  against  the  entailment  of  such  debt  upon  posterity. 

This  is  THE  CHIEF  COENEK-STONE  of  our  government,  that 
there  can  be  no  hereditary  rulers,  either  of  kings  or  nobility, 
transmitted  from  one  generation  to  another;  neither  by  succes 
sion  nor  appointment  by  birth  or  condition. 

The  second  great  principle  and  corollary  of  the  first,  is,  that 
no  one  generation  has  the  power  to  bind  an  organic  law  irrevo 
cably  upon  a  succeeding  generation,  any  more  than  kings  have 
the  right  to  appoint  successors,  or  the  people  may  be  governed 
by  the  laws  of  royal  descent.  The  third  great  principle  and 
corollary  of  the  first  and  second  is,  that  there  is  no  just  power  in 
any  one  generation  to  mortgage  the  labor  of  a  succeeding  gen 
eration,  without  transmitting  the  means  of  payment ;  and  then  it 
is  purely  optional  with  the  succeeding  generations,  whether  they 
will  accept  the  conditions  upon  which  it  is  done.  The  debt  is 
represented  as  "  a  first  mortgage  upon  the  property  of  the  United 
States"  but  it  is  rather  a  bill  of  credit  drawn  upon  the  prosper 
ity  of  the  people,  which  they  will  repudiate  and  send  to  protest 
in  eternity. 

The  power  to  create  and  transmit  such  a  debt  is  a  most  terri 
ble  revival  of  the  old  hard-hearted  Jewish  doctrine,  that  "  The 
father  ate  sour  grapes  and  put  the  children's  teeth  on  edge/' 

"We  are  met  with  the  philanthropic  argument,  that  the  debt  was 
a  contract  to  give  to  the  country  liberty.  This  is  impossi 
ble.  For  the  very  taxation  necessary  to  pay  the  interest  on 
the  debt,  is  itself  a  slavery  intolerable  and  insupportable, 
from  which  the  people  will  be  forced  to  fly  to  strange  lands  and 
seek  refuge  in  perpetual  alienage;  or,  as  the  alternative  de- 


CEIMES   OP   THE   CIVIL   WAE.  231 

mand,  repudiation  of  both  principal  and  interest  as  the  only  re 
maining  remedy. 

The  great  idea  upon  which  the  late  civil  war  was  waged,  wras 
that  no  one  man  may  enslave  his  cotemporary  under  any  pre 
tence  whatever.  It  is  the  acme  of  the  triumph  claimed  by  its 
friends  and  instigators,  that  this  great  question  was  settled  by 
the  force  of  arms  and  sealed  with  the  richest  blood  of  a  whole 
generation  of  civilized  men,  that  innocent  involuntary  servitude 
shall  find  no  legal  tolerance  among  us. 

But  what  a  fatal  conclusion  to  this  argument  is  it  that  we  may 
transmit  slavery  and  unrequited  obligations  to  be  exacted  by  un 
born  generations  from  each  other,  through  the  funding  system. 
Sifted  of  their  sophistry,  the  arguments  used  to  extenuate  the 
crime  of  transmitting  mortgages  to  posterity,  would  as  well 
apologize  for  the  transmission  of  scrofula,  consumption  or  other 
diseases.  Carried  to  its  legitimate  results,  the  present  system 
assumes  that  the  profligacy  of  each  generation  may  mortgage 
the  prosperity  and  labor  of  all  generations  succeeding  it,  until 
the  full  value  of  the  property  is  exhausted,  the  labor  absorbed 
in  advance,  and  capital  as  effectually  own  labor  as  the  grazier 
owns  the  bullock,  or  the  mule  only,  awaiting  the  time  when  age 
will  consign  them  to  the  collar  and  the  yoke.  Deducting  food, 
raiment  and  shelter,  the  owner  pockets  the  earnings  of  thfc  £>oor 
very  much  in  the  same  manner. 


232  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  DUTY  OF  THE  FRIENDS  OF  PEACE  TO  REPUDIATE  WAR  DEBTS. 

ALL,  wars  of  modern  times  have  been  under  the  control 
of  capitalists.  In  Europe,  the  moneyed  kings  dictate  terms  to 
their  political  sovereigns,  control  wars  and  make  peace.  In 
America,  the  bankers  contrived  the  late  civil  war.  It  was  quite 
as  much  a  scheme  of  money  as  of  policy.  War  would  not  have 
been  created  if  the  banks  had  refused  to  engage  in  it.  It  could 
not  have  been  carried  on,  if  the  capital  of  the  country  had  man 
fully  opposed  it. 

The  liberty  of  the  people,  the  peace  of  the  world  and  material 
prosperity  of  the  poor  would  have  been  undisturbed,  and  even 
the  condition  of  the  negroes  would  have  been  better  than  now, 
but  for  these  men. 

The  capitalists  and  stock-gamblers  in  Europe,  by  their  alliance 
with  the  political  adventurers  of  America,  carefully  planned  this 
war,  in  the  interest  of  despotism  and  the  funding  systems.  They 
anticipated  every  argument  and  prepared  the  public  mind  for 
war  in  advance.  During  the  war  they  prepared  for  the  debt  and 
continued  the  war,  that  the  debt  might  reach  its  present  enormous 
extent. 

These  gamesters  upon  human  life  and  public  misfortune,  have 
fattened  upon  the  bloody  conflicts  of  emperors  and  kings,  and 
inherit  fortunes  coined  out  of  the  most  frightful  battles  of  mod 
ern  times.  Austria,  France,  Prussia  and  England  have  been  fet 
tered  by  the  mortgages  entailed  by  these  brokers,  upon  their  prop 
erty  and  industry. 

Such  is  the  perfection  of  the  conspiracy  against  the  property 
of  the  world,  entered  into  by  these  stock  gamblers,  that  war  is 
always  precipitated  upon  a  particular  country,  whenever  it  is  be 
lieved  to  be  ripe  for  revolution  or  fat  enough  to  enrich  the  money 
trade. 


CKIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  233 

For  the  purpose  of  creating  civil  war,  destroying  the  agricul 
ture  of  the  South,  entailing  a  debt  upon  the  people  and,  if  possi 
ble,  the  utter  destruction  of  Republican  government  in  the 
United  States,  English  emissaries  were,  by  the  monied  interests 
of  Europe,  under  religious  guise,  sent  to  America  to  stir  up  civil 
war.  Pamphleteers  added  their  wicked  labors  to  the  work.  Sum- 
ner's  celebrated  visit  to  Europe  was  in  the  same  general  interest^ 
and  when  Gen.  James  Shields  of  the  United  States  army,  had 
left  the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  Sumner  assured  him  that  he 
was  glad  that  the  rebels  were  not  entirely  defeated,  because  his 
great  object  would  not  be  accomplished  if  they  were.  The  de 
struction  of  our  prosperity,  the  ultimatum  of  the  stock  gamblers, 
had  not  been  reached.  The  raid  of  John  Brown  and  the  parti- 
zan  conflicts,  were  but  incidents  in  the  grand  purpose  to  create 
war  and  base  a  funding  system  upon  it. 

Such  has  been  the  unbroken  success  of  the  professional  mis 
chief-makers  of  the  world,  that  they  have  succeeded  in  Europe 
for  a  full  half  century,  in  fastening  ruin  and  bankruptcy  upon 
every  sovereignty  which  was  directed  by  their  counsels  or  fell 
into  their  grasp. 

Bonaparte  eluded  their  machinations ;  this  only  provoked  their 
wrath  and  drove  them  to  the  combinations  which  culminated  at 
"Waterloo,  in  the  destruction  of  his  empire  and  liberty. 

The  Mexican  war  was  the  first  game  played  by  the  American 
stockbrokers,  upon  which  the  general  peace  of  the  Western  Hem 
isphere  was  staked  and  lost.  The  late  civil  war  has  been  a  suc 
cess,  and  if  the  stakes  are  delivered  up  by  the  ruined  people  to 
the  stockgamblers,  permanent  peace  in  the  United  States  is  gone 
forever. 

The  successes  have  emboldened  the  stockbrokers,  and  given 
them  possession  of  every  avenue  to  popular  favor  and  power. 
The  pulpit,  the  press  and  the  army,  have  been  used  as  their  in 
strument,  to  secure  their  prize  in  the  blood  market  of  the  world. 
These  instruments  of  popular  favor  speak  of  war  as  the  only 
means  of  government  to  be  used  upon  every  occasion  to  gratify 
spites,  to  punish  indignities,  or  secure  plunder.  Unless  this 
spirit  be  arrested  promptly,  our  peace  is  imperilled  and  will  be 
destroyed. 


234  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAK. 

There  is  only  one  way  to  counteract  this  wicked  spirit ;  and 
that  is,  to  give  notice  to  the  world  that  debts  contracted  in  such 
an  enterprize,  bind  no  one  and  cannot  be  collected.  If  it  be 
wicked  to  engage  in  wars,  it  is  also  unjust  to  pay  money  to  carry 
on  wars ;  but  if  it  be  unjust  to  carry  on  wars  by  ready  money, 
how  much  more  atrocious  to  carry  them  on  by  anticipating  the 
credit  of  generations.  It  is  the  duty  of  all  sincere  peace  men  to 
make  a  demonstration  against  this  usurpation  ;  and  let  it  be  un 
derstood  that  no  debt  made  on  the  interest  of  a  war  of  premedi 
tated  plunder,  can  be  enforced  upon  a  free  people,  or  be  sanc 
tioned  by  the  friends  of  peace. 

There  is  an  Equity,  which,  in  all  public  affairs,  looks  to  the  pur 
poses,  the  mode  and  the  application  of  monies  in  the  creation  of 
debts,  when  debts  have  been  created  in  fraud,  for  purposes  of  cor 
ruption,  and  the  parties  issuing  evidences  of  debt  were  particeps 
criminis  and  beneficiaries,  then  the  question  goes  back  to  the 
legislatures,  which  must  levy  taxes  before  they  can  be  collected. 
The  new  legislature  must  be  elected  by  the  people.  The  people 
of  no  country  hasten  to  pay  debts  known  to  be  fradulent  or  un 
just.  Against  the  indiscriminate  payment  of  no  debt  ever  con 
tracted,  has  there  been  so  many  conclusive  arguments  for  utter 
repudiation  as  the  debt  now  claimed  by  the  foreign  capitalists 
and  domestic  speculators,  holding  bonds  and  certificates  of  in 
debtedness  against  the  United  States,  as  the  basis  of  a  perpetual 
system  of  gambling  upon  the  labor  and  commerce  of  the 
country. 

The  objectors  and  objections  are  susceptible  of  a  clear  and 
easy  classification,  and  when  carefully  embodied,  embrace  all  of 
the  elements  of  good  government. 

1.  EVERY  CONSISTENT  FRIEND  OF  PEACE  MUST  OPPOSE  THE 
PAYMENT  OF  THE  DEBT. 

If  it  be  wrong  to  engage  in  a  war  of  unparalleled  cruelty  and 
horror,  it  cannot  be  right  to  compensate  the  worst  participants 
in  it ;  men  whose  business  is  to  inflame  wars,  to  fatten  upon  the 
blood  of  the  innocent,  and  hoard  up  the  treasure  gained  by  the 
slaughter  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  human  beings,  hurried 
into  the  presence  of  God  without  thought  or  preparation. 

"What  care  these  men  —  the  brokers  in  immortal  souls  —  for 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAlR.  235 

the  burning  of  cities,  barns,  mills,  and  the  desolation  of  whole 
regions  of  cultivated  lands ;  with  the  food  arid  raiment  of  de- 
crepid  old  men,  feeble  women,  and  helpless  children ;  the  razing 
of  churches  and  desecration  of  cemeteries  ? 

Experience  for  the  last  three  centuries  demonstrates  that  the 
capitalists  of  the  world  hold  the  peace  and  the  destiny  of  nations 
in  their  hands ;  they  create  war  and  make  peace.  The  supersti 
tions  of  religion  and  the  malignity  of  politics,  are  under  the 
mercenary  control  of  capital.  The  payment  of  this  debt  is  a 
test  question  of  civilization,  which  the  gamblers  in  public  stocks, 
watch  with  an  intense  interest,  that  Christians  might  well  emu 
late  in  the  propagation  of  the  gospel. 

Wars  in  Europe  have  placed  her  mercenary  bankers  in  prince 
ly  opulence.  They  furnish  the  sinews  of  war,  and  command 
peace  whenever  they  have  sufficiently  involved  the  imperial 
powers  to  secure  an  increase  of  annuities,  and  kings  quiescently 
yield  to  their  behests. 

These  kingly  brokers  watch  the  probabilities  of  war  with  the 
same  keen  scent  that  vultures  follow  the  camp  of  moving  armies, 
to  fatten  on  the  offal.  Such  has  been  their  success  and  sagacity, 
that  whilst  kings  exercise  arbitrary  power  over  the  lives  and 
liberties  of  their  subjects,  by  war  and  conscription,  these  bankers 
divide  the  regal  power  by  subsidizing  the  labor  of  the  subjects 
of  kings  in  advance,  absorbing  it  in  taxations  levied  at  their  dic 
tation  ;  purchasing  kings,  bribing  judges,  suborning  witnesses, 
entering  into  partnerships  with  legislatures,  commissioning  mili 
tary  officers,  and  hiring  standing  armies  to  stamp  out  the  liber 
ties  of  the  people,  who  are  forced  to  support  all  of  these  by  tax 
ation. 

The  United  States  have  laid  the  foundation  for  just  such  a 
comprehensive  system  of  monied  oligarchy.  There  is  now 
thrust  into  our  faces  the  frightful  picture,  by  every  newspaper 
under  the  control  of  capital,  predictions  of  war,  and  clamoring 
for  blood  as  the  remedy  for  every  trivial  evil,  that  adventurers 
may  reap  a  rich  harvest  from  the  vices  of  the  wicked,  the  follies 
of  the  weak,  and  the  general  profligacy  of  society.  Such  is  the 
spirit  of  fanaticism,  and  the  maddened  temper  of  bad  men  as 
piring  to  power,  that  all  argument  is  ridiculed,  except  that  which 


236  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

opens  up  a  new  field  of  plunder,  or  draws  new  victims  into  the 
net  of  their  insatiate  lust  of  gain. 

If  such  men  succeed  in  funding  and  consolidating  the  public 
debt  made  during  the  war,  they  have  established  a  precedent 
which  will  assure  them  the  power  to  incite  a  war  at  any  time 
hereafter,  when  whim,  interest  or  bad  feeling  may  indicate 
either  its  profit  or  necessity.  A  strict  and  rigid  settlement,  ac 
cording  to  the  equities  of  eternal  justice,  is  the  only  remedy  for 
the  great  evil  upon  us.  This  is  the  clearest  and  most  direct  way 
to  teach  these  gentlemen  what  they  may  not  do,  although  they 
inflame  the  vilest  passions  of  human  nature  into  war;  yet  they 
must  be  taught  that  they  cannot  control  the  public  conscience  to 
enslave  itself,  and  enforce  perpetual  bondage  upon  a  people  born 
free ;  that  they  cannot  safely  create  and  carry  on  wars,  wicked 
and  destructive  in  themselves,  which  might  be  averted,  but  for  the 
persistent  chicanery  of  capital,  which  uses  all  of  the  well  known 
arts  of  diplomacy  to  involve  the  people  in  civil  war ;  which, 
failing  in  every  other  means  to  precipitate  their  revolutionary 
ends  upon  the  country,  connive  at  war,  eschew  compromise,  and 
mob  and  murder  the  friends  of  peace. 

The  only  hope  of  peace  is  in  the  destruction  of  the  prosperity 
of  mercenaries  engaged  in  provoking  civil  wars.  He  is  neither 
an  intelligent  nor  a  true  friend  of  peace,  who  will  not  boldly 
repudiate  every  illegal,  fraudulent  and  vicious  claim  against  the 
labor  of  the  people  to  satiate  the  venality  of  capital,  fattened  on 
blood. 

This  style  of  mortgaging  labor  in  anticipated  taxation  is  a  wicked 
device  of  modern  times,  to  carry  on  wars  of  conquest,  wars  of  sub 
jugation,  wars  for  plunder  and  wars  to  feed  the  malignity  of  bad 
men.  It  has  never  been  successfully  carried  out  to  ensure  more 
than  annually  accruing  interest  on  the  debt,  and  then  only  at 
reduced  rates,  and  when  it  could  be  made  the  ministering  servant 
of  a  system  of  aristocracy  and  overbearing  power.  Let  it  be  an 
avowed  article  of  American  faith,  that  110  war  of  money,  no  war 
for  money  can  be  successfully  prosecuted  and  carried  on  under 
the  auspices  of  a  free  people;  henceforth  capitalists  will  have 
neither  the  will  or  power  to  involve  a  peaceful  people  in  uni- 


CHIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR.  237 

versal  carnage.  Such  has  been  the  work  of  war  upon  our 
social  system^sought  to  be  ratiified  by  the  sanction  of  the  people 
in  the  submission  to  this  debt,  that  it  binds  us  hand  and  foot 
and  adds  to  war  slavery,  to  slavery  all  of  its  concomitant  degra 
dation. 


238  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 


CHAPTER  X 

A  PLAN  FOR  THE  PAYMENT  OF  THE  PUBLIC  DEBT. 

I.  Let  the  government  pay  to  the  holders  of  all  the  different 
kinds  of  bonds,  government  certificates  to  the  full  amount  of 
their  face. 

II.  Let  the  national  banks  be  compelled  at  once  to  surrender 
their  bonds  and  redeem  their  national  bank  notes  with  these 
treasury  notes  or  certificates,  and  abolish  the  whole  national  bank 
ing  system,  appointing  receivers  to  compel  them  to  go  into  liqui 
dation. 

III.  At  once  reestablish  the  sub-treasury  system  for  the  safe 
keeping  of  the  government  monies. 

IV.  Eestore  in  its  full  force  the  specie  basis  of  our  currency 
according  to  the  Constitution,  to  all  contracts  entered  into  after 
the  year   1867 ;  but  for  the  protection  of  the  business  of  the 
country,  let  all  debts  created  from  the  institution  of  the  so-called 
legal-tender,  as  a  currency,  until  the  restoration  of  the  gold  and 
silver  basis,  be  paid  in  these  government  certificates,  not  because 
they  are  a  legal-tender,  but  because  a  vicious  legislation  misled 
the  people  and  drove  them  into  the  use  of  this  paper  money. 

V.  Let  parties,  by  contract,  take  these  certificates  as  they  would 
any  other  article  of  commodity  by  special  agreement. 

VI.  Let  these  certificates  be  liable  to  execution  as  any  other 
personal  property,  for  all  debts  contracted  after  the  restoration  of 
the  constitutional  legal-tender;  then  let  them  be  sold  to  the 
highest  bidder  for  gold  and  silver. 

VII.  Private  banking  can  be  carried  on  then  as  now,  upon 
the  personal  responsibility  of  the  bankers,  like  all  other  business, 
upon  the  personal  liability  and  capacity  and  integrity  of  the  in 
dividuals,  without  loaning  the  aid  of  the  government  to  enrich 
the  banks  or  defraud  the  people. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAK.  239 

VIII.  Let  the  government  lift  these  certificates  in  payment 
of  duties,  at  all  her  ports  and  in  payment  of  public  lands  at  their 
appraised  value ;  but  in  no  case  to  be  less  than  the  minimum 
price  now  paid  for  the  railroad  land  and  all  mineral  lands,  at 
their  actual  value,  in  greenbacks  or  government  certificates. 

IX.  The  abolition  of  the  revenue  system,  with  its  army  of 
officers,  and  public  and  private  espionage,  and  the  adoption  of  the 
old  plan  of  raising  revenue. 

X.  Abolish  all  interest  upon  public  debts  of  every  kind. 
The  above  plan  embodies  a  remedy  for  all  of  the  evils  of  the 

funding  system,  and  must  be  adopted  preliminary  to  all  others. 
This  is  necessary  to  prevent  a  permanent  coalition  of  "  the  purse 
and  the  sword,"  which  are  now  united  to  absorb  the  labor  and 
crush  out  the  independence  of  the  people.  Until  we  are  rid  of 
the  bonds  and  their  consequent  taxation,  and  abolish  the  banks 
with  their  consequent  usury,  it  is  useless  to  propose  the  protec 
tion  of  labor  against  the  encroachments  of  capital,  because  capital 
assumes  to  own  labor,  and  labor  creates  the  money  that  pays  both 
taxes  and  interest. 

Until  the  abolition  of  the  revenue  system,  it  is  quite  as  use 
less  to  denounce  tariffs,  because  tariffs  are  the  legitimate  children 
of  funding  systems,  and  necessary  to  the  payment  of  interest  on 
the  debt. 

Capital  is  sensitive  in  the  covetousness  of  her  interests,  and 
villainous  in  the  exercise  of  her  power  and  cowardly  withal. 

Labor  is  cool,  powerful,  courageous  and  honest.  When  fairly 
aroused  and  completely  marshaled,  the  laboring  masses  have  de 
molished  the  combinations  of  capital  in  every  country  where  the 
conflict  has  been  provoked. 

The  debt  is  a  vampire  which  drinks  the  fountains  of  our  arte 
rial  system  dry,  and  keeps  up  a  financial  police  who  hunt  down 
the  people  through  every  avenue  of  trade  to  spy  out  their  liber 
ties. 

The  above  simple  solution  of  the  funded  debt  obliterates  the 
corruption  fund,  which  controls  legislation,  taints  our  judiciary, 
and  drives  on  the  military  satraps  to  their  Asiatic  saturnalia. 
It  will  do  more.  It  puts  the  capital  of  the  country  upon  one 
general  equality  of  employment,  risk,  anxiety  and  enterprise ; 


240  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAE. 

and  gives  capitalists  an  interest  in  common  with  the  people,  and 
gives  the  people  an  immunity  from  the  encroachment  of  capital, 
and  the  espionage  and  annoyance  of  government  vermin. 

The  plan  is  not  premature,  but  actually  necessary  to  be  adopt 
ed  at  once,  as  the  only  means  of  saving  us  from  another  coil  of 
the  military  boa-constrictor,  to  crush  our  bones,  or  prevent  us 
from  being  swallowed  alive  by  the  anaconda  of  the  funding  sys 
tem,  which  lies  with  gaping  mouth  ready  to  receive  its  meal,  all 
covered  with  slime  and  saliva. 

The  debt  is  woven  into  a  complete  mesh-work  that  involves 
every  part  of  the  business  of  the  country  in  ruin. 

The  payment  of  the  bonds  in  treasury  notes  is  the  only  way 
to  disentangle  and  unfold  these  voracious  serpents,  which  are 
gathering  its  coils  around  the  American  republican  system, 
to  crush  its  bones,  and  mingle  them  with  its  flesh  in  a  per 
fect  jelly,  the  more  readily  to  devour  it.  The  payment  of  the 
bonds  by  greenbacks  so  far  simplifies  this  complicated  question 
that  it  leaves  the  currency  in  the  very  condition  in  which  it  was 
placed  by  the  government,  unencumbered  by  the  funding  system ; 
the  revenue  system,  which  collects  the  interest  upon  the  bonds ; 
the  banking  system,  which  is  reared  upon  the  funding  system ; 
the  tariff  system,  which  feeds  it ;  the  military  system  which  will 
ultimately  be  employed  to  enforce  the  collection  of  the  income 
and  tariff  system. 

It  is  just  that  the  bondholders  receive  these  treasury  notes  for 
their  bonds  from  the  people ;  which  is  precisely  the  same  kind  of 
currency  which  they  received  for  the  horses,  mules,  wagons, 
transportation,  rations  and  clothing  furnished  by  the  people  to 
the  government. 

The  same  exactly  which  the  borrower  who  received  gold  of 
the  lender,  returned  in  payment  of  his  debt  after  years  of  pro 
tracted  loans  and  stay  of  execution. 

The  same  which  liquidated  soldiers'  bounties  and  monthly  pay 
—  then  back  pay  and  pensions  for  wounded  soldiers,  orphans 
and  widows. 

The  same  which  pays  the  physician,  attorney,  professor  and 
minister  of  the  gospel,  for  their  skill  and  services. 

The  same  which  is  given  in  return  for  the  labor  of  the  mechanic, 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  241 

artisan  and  toiling  multitudes,  whose  drooping  brows  respond  to 
the  necessities  of  enterprise ;  who  construct  our  railroads,  dig  our 
canals,  cultivate  our  soil  and  build  our  cities. 

The  same  which  has  been  declared  by  the  Supreme  Court  as  a 
legal-tender  in  the  payment  of  all  debts.  It  is  not  proposed  in 
this  chapter,  to  affirm  or  deny  the  validity  or  justice  of  this 
opinion,  but  simply  to  call  attention  to  the  fact. 

The  treasury  notes  with  which  the  bonds  should  be  liquidated 
are  as  good  as  the  legal-tender  which  liquidate  the  bank  notes 
themselves.  There  is  a  necessity  to  pay  off  the  bonds  with 
treasury  notes,  for  the  following  obvious  and  unanswerable  con 
siderations,  namely : 

Because  it  is  paying  the  bonds  in  the  paper  with  which  they 
were  bought. 

Because  it  is  necessary  to  our  present  freedom. 

Because  it  does  not  involve  the  question  of  the  payment  of  the 
debt,  but  leaves  it  open. 

Because  it  takes  idle  capital  untaxed  from  the  hands  of  idle 
men,  and  engages  both  in  actiye  business. 


242  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR, 


CHAPTER    XI. 

CORRESPONDENCE  BETWEEN  THE  AUTHOR  AND  HORACE  GREELEY. 

SIR  :  —  In  a  recent  issue  of  the  Tribune,  I  observe  the  following 
epithets  applied  to  those  who  favor  the  liquidation  by  the  pay 
ment  of  the  public  debt  in  greenbacks,  the  cancellation  of  the 
bonds  which  are  devouring  us  with  interest,  and  the  obliteration 
of  the  national  banking  system,  which  is  employed  in  the  interest 
of  monopoly  to  crush  out  the  liberties  of  the  people  and  hoard 
the  necessaries  of  life,  and  starve  and  freeze  the  poor,  to  enrich 
illegitimate  speculation.  You  say  that  "such  a  proposition 
would  shame  any  swindler  that  ever  uttered  counterfeit  money 
or  passed  off  bogus  checks.  No  one  will  countenance  any  of 
these  devices  for  loading  debts  instead  of  paying  them,  who  is 
not  in  heart  and  soul  a  villain.  Any  republican  or  war  democrat 
who  lends  them  a  shadow  of  countenance  proves  himself  an 
ingrate,  a  villain,  and  a  fool.  We  are  quite  willing  to  see  the 
copperheads  place  themselves  upon  a  platform  of  repudiation, 
for  it  is  high  time  that  a  career  of  infamy  should  be  closed  in  a 
death  of  shame." 

I  confess  that  the  above  styla  of  argument  seems  not  indebted 
to  Bacon,  Locke  or  Whately,  for  its  cogency,  and  quite  indepen 
dent  of  Addison,  Irving  or  Burke  for  the  delicate  choice  of  its 
language,  and  is  indeed  original  and  characteristic. 

In  the  year  1865,  in  a  number  of  speeches  delivered  in  the 
State  of  New  Jersey,  and  published  in  a  number  of  newspapers 
in  different  parts  of  the  United  States,  I  first  proposed  the  pay 
ment  of  the  bonds  in  greenbacks,  as  we  were  then,  and  are  now, 
paying  everything  else  in  that  kind  of  currency;  and  our  courts 
were  then,  and  are  now,  enforcing  all  private  and  public  contracts 
upon  that  basis.  I  then  did,  and  now  do,  believe  that  this  is  the 
only  practicable,  wise,  just  and  equitable  method  of  disposing 
of  this  monstrous  load,  which  you  have  time  and  again  argued 
must  stint  the  poor  in  their  food,  raiment,  fuel  and  shelter  for 
generations  to  come,  and  of  course  cannot  affect  the  rich,  to 
whom  it  is  paid. 

Notwithstanding  the  employment  of  your  choice  epithets,  I 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  243 

hereby  propose  to  discuss  this  question  through  the  Tribune, 
allowing  me  two  columns  of  your  paper  every  week,  until  the 
whole  subject  has  fairly  passed  in  review.  Or  I  will  meet  you 
in  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  Louisville,  Chicago,  or  any  of  the 
eastern  cities,  and  publicly  debate  the  questions  involved  in  my 
propositions.  If  you  will  meet  me  in  any  of  the  cities  indicated, 
I  will,  in  view  of  your  style  of  arguments,  give  you  two  hours, 
and  will  be  content  with  one  alternately.  In  case  you  should 
not  except  either  of  these  propositions,  I  extend  the  invitation  to 
Wendell  Phillips,  Senator  Henry  Wilson,  or  to  your  glib-tongued 
neighbor,  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

It  may  not  be  unkind  to  inform  you  that  I  am  now  addressing 
audiences  of  from  three  to  ten  thousand  persons  every  day,  com 
posed  of  republicans  and  democrats,  all  of  whom  heartily  en 
dorse  the  plan,  and  among  the  number  are  many  eminent  officers 
of  the  late  Federal  army,  including  gentlemen  of  both  political 
parties.  I  await  your  early  reply,  preliminary  to  arrangements 
for  discussion. 

I  am  very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

HENRY  CLAY  DEAN. 


OFFICE  OF  THE  TRIBUNE,      "I 
NEW  YORK,  Sept.  8,  '67.  / 

MR.  DEAN — Sir:  I  have  yours  of  the  29th  ult.  Should  I 
ever  consent  to  argue  the  propriety  and  policy  of  wholesale 
swindling,  I  shall  take  your  proposal  into  consideration.  I  do 
not  know  where  the  cause  of  national  villainy  could  find  a  fitter 
advocate  than  yourself. 

Yours,  HORACE  GREELEY. 

HENRY  CLAY  DEAN,  ML  Pleasant,  Iowa. 


HORACE  GREELEY,  ESQ.  : 

Sir  :  I  hereby  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  polite  note  of 
the  8th  ultimo.  Though  not  surprised  at  the  courteous  tone  and 
philosophical  air  of  your  brief  epistle,  I  confess  to  a  gratification 
in  observing  that  you  have  added  to  your  varied  accomplish 
ments  the  brilliancy  of  wit  as  an  embellishment  of  your  labored 
essays,  and  that  you  adorn  your  private  correspondence  with 
those  jewels  of  literature  which  have  hitherto  been  confined  to 
the  bar-room  and  ball-alley,  which,  however,  you  have  very 
properly  redeemed  from  their  vulgar  use  as  most  singularly 
becoming  the  style,  compass  and  subject  matter  of  your  teaching, 


244  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

and  so  happily  adapted  to  the  tastes,  associations  and  wants  of 
your  political  pupils  and  associates. 

I  accept,  with  due  appreciation,  the  reasons  which  you  assign 
for  your  silence  upon  the  great  questions  of  political  economy 
involved  in  the  unfortunate  condition  of  the  country,  and  rather 
attribute  to  your  modesty  what  you  claim  for  your  sense  of 
justice. 

You  will  pardon  me  for  the  assurance  that,  however  much  I 
may  be  startled  at  the  use  of  such  comprehensive  terms  as 
"  wholesale  swindling  "  and  "  national  villainy  ;"  yet  this  style 
of  language  has  been  so  long  in  vogue  among  gentlemen  of  very 
moderate  'attainments,  that  it  utterly  fails  to  produce  conviction 
when  offered  as  a  substitute  for  logic,  and  scarcely  succeeds  in 
captivating  when  employed  as  a  rhetorical  flourish  to  ornament 
unhappy  conceptions  of  ruinous  dogmas. 

Without  any  pretension  to  that  astuteness  requisite  to  reply 
to  such  startling  propositions  as  are  embodied  in  the  sweeping 
denunciations  of  "wholesale  swindling"  and  "national  villainy," 
I  charge  you  and  the  free-booters  and  highwaymen  whom  you 
have  led  in  the  work  of  wholesale  swindling  and  national  vil 
lainy — the  burning  of  cities,  the  overthrow  of  States,  the  desola 
tion  of  the  most  beautiful  countries,  the  murder  of  the  innocent, 
the  supremacy  of  anarchy  over  law,  of  despotism  over  liberty, 
of  capital  over  labor,  that  you  are  now  demanding  the  robbery 
of  the  poor  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  that  the  opulent  may  riot 
in  its  luxuries.  To  carry  out  this  most  wicked  purpose,  you 
propose  to  mortgage  the  labor  of  the  poor  to  the  bonds  of  the 
rich  in  all  time  to  come,  and  fasten  a  perpetual  debt  as  a  cancer 
upon  the  body  politic. 

Upon  the  other  hand,  I  propose  to  pay  off  this  debt  in  green 
backs,  the  very  currency  in  which  it  was  created,  that  the  people 
may  be  emancipated  at  once. 

I  assume  that  a  sound  and  uniform  currency  is  the  life-blood 
of  commerce,  agriculture,  manufactories,  and  civilization  itself, 
to  which  every  government  must  conform  its  business,  credits 
and  intercourse  with  other  governments. 

Justice  requires  a  uniform  currency  to  regulate  the  relations 
of  capital  to  labor,  that  the  rich  may  not  oppress  the  poor,  nor 
the  creditor  consume  the  substance  of  the  debtor  in  exchanges, 
usury  and  extortions. 

These  are  truisms  never  doubted  and  questions  never  raised 
in  the  United  States  before  the  inauguration  of  the  present  great 
fraud  upon  the  labor  of  the  country. 

Against  these  manifest  principles  of  justice  and  sound  policy 


CHIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR.  245 

we  have  under  the  present  odious  and  monstrous  "  FUNDING 
SYSTEM/'  two  entirely  distinct  and  entirely  different  kinds  of 
currencies  —  one  for  the  poor  and  the  other  for  the  rich.  The 
one  which  is  imposed  upon  the  poor  will  not  carry  him  forty 
leagues  from  the  shores  of  his  own  country,  or  be  recognized  in 
any  of  the  nations  of  the  earth  at  any  uniform  value,  or  pass  as 
a  circulating  medium  in  any  transaction  of  business  —  which  at 
home  is  the  subject  matter  of  every  manner  of  bartering,  and  is 
shaved  by  the  government  at  its  counters. 

This  inferior  currency  is  the  only  compensation  which  the  poor 
man  receives  for  his  labor — which  the  soldier  receives  for  his 
services,  and  his  widow  and  children  inherit  as  the  price  of  his 
blood  —  that  the  farmer  receives  for  his  grain,  live  stock,  fruit, 
and  for  the  fee  simple  of  the  land  itself. 

The  old  man  who  loaned  his  gold  and  silver  to  secure  an  in 
come  for  helplessness  and  old  age,  is  forced  to  accept  treasury 
notes  in  payment  of  both  interest  and  principal,  although  he  may 
lose  two-thirds  of  the  entire  value  of  his  debt  by  the  worthlessness 
of  this  miserable  apology  for  money. 

The  mechanic  who  builds  houses  out  of  materials  purchased 
with  gold  and  silver,  is  forced  to  take  this  paper  money  in  pay 
ment  of  the  purchase,  although  it  was  promised  in  the  precious 
metals ;  and  no  allowance  is  made  for  the  depreciation ;  whilst 
all  debts  contracted  upon  a  specie  basis  yet  due  and  unpaid,  are 
payable  in  this  inferior  currency,  subject  to  the  fluctuations  of  a 
drunken  money  market.  The  lawyer  receives  it  for  his  fees,  the 
physician  for  his  medicines,  the  professor  and  minister  for  his 
salary.  The  poor  widow  who  works  to  support  her  orphan 
children,  is  forced  to  accept  this  shadow  of  money  in  payment  of 
her  wages ;  and  the  poor  girl  who,  in  filial  devotion,  labors  day 
and  night,  denying  herself  of  the  comforts  of  life  to  save  her 
weekly  pittance  to  bring  her  indigent  mother  from  a  foreign  land, 
is  forced  to  take  these  rag  shadows  of  her  labor  and  submit  them 
to  the  mercenary  discretion  of  the  heartless  broker,  in  the  ex 
change  for  money  recognized  in  the  commercial  ports  of  the 
world.  Even  your  protege,  the  negro,  is  robbed  of  the  products 
of  his  industry  by  the  worthlessness  of  the  rags  in  which  he  is 
paid,  the  value  of  which  he  is  not  even  able  to  decipher. 

Such  is  the  currency  created  for  the  business  and  robbery  of 
the  poor,  whose  necessities  forbid  the  possibility  of  their  owner 
ship  of  government  or  any  other  securities ;  but  who,  in  exces 
sive  tariff,  stamps,  increased  price  upon  their  food,  raiment,  fuel, 
house  rents,  medicines,  burial  expenses,  and  other  indirect  tax 
ation,  surrendered  lull  one-half  of  all  their  labor  to  give  an  en- 


246  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

tirely  different  currency  to  a  privileged  class,  created  for  the 
purpose  of  overthrowing  our  republican  form  of  government, 
and  establishing  an  oligarchy  in  imitation  of  the  worst  period  of 
the  French  despotism  which  exonerated  the  nobility  from  taxa 
tion. 

Gold  and  silver,  the  circulating  medium  of  the  civilized 
world,  the  commercial  passport  to  business  everywhere,  is  the 
especial  property  of  only  two  classes  of  the  American  people, 
whose  princely  possessions  placed  them  beyond  the  reach  of  want; 
who  draw  their  substance  from  all  other  classes,  who,  by  this 
very  distinction  in  the  two  currencies,  are  crushed  beyond  the 
hope  of  recovery.  The  first  class  of  gentlemen  who  are  espe 
cially  cared  for  in  this  unjust  and  merciless  wrong,  or,  to  use  your 
own  delectable  phraseology,  "  national  villainy  "  and  "  wholesale 
swindling,"  are  the  manufacturers.  For  their  double  protection, 
the  tariffs,  already  prohibitory  and  ruinous  to  the  consumer,  are 
nearly  doubled  by  the  difference  in  exchange  consequent  upon 
the  payment  of  the  duties  in  gold  and  silver,  which  you  must 
know,  adds  nothing  to  the  revenue  of  the  General  Government, 
because  it  drives  commerce  from  the  custom-house,  to  the  con 
trol  of  the  smuggler,  and  oppresses  the  consumer  by  adding 
these  tariffs  to  the  price  of  his  goods,  and  pays  fabulous  amounts 
into  the  pockets  of  the  British  manufacturer,  who  smuggles  his 
goods  into  British  vessels  to  feed  British  merchantmen  upon  the 
vitals  of  American  commerce. 

This  evasion  of  the  revenue  laws  by  the  smuggler,  is  made 
doubly  remunerative  by  the  excessive  duties  which  are  paid  in 
gold.  This  payment  of  duties  in  gold  and  silver,  after  having 
mutually  enriched  the  smuggler  and  monopolist  at  the  expense 
of  the  government  cheated  of  its  dues,  and  the  poor  who  are 
robbed  by  the  duties,  is  then  carefully  husbanded  as  a  golden 
fund  for  the  payment  of  the  bondholder. 

The  bondholder  is  the  second  class  of  gentlemen  who  receive 
gold  and  silver  in  payment  of  their  bonds  and  the  accruing  in 
terest.  Of  these  two  classes  you  are  the  especial  champion. 

There  can  be  no  possible  reason,  founded  in  justice,  why  the 
bondholder  should  be  paid  either  the  principal  or  interest  of  his 
debt  in  any  other  currency  than  that  which  by  law  is  declared  a 
legal-tender  in  payment  of  all  other  debts. 

The  greenbacks  either  are  or  they  are  not  a  legal-tender  in  the 
payment  of  debts.  If  they  are  not  a  legal-tender  in  the  payment 
of  debts,  then  the  Congress  which  so  enacted,  the  courts  which 
sustain  the  enactments,  and  the  party  which  enforced  this  legis- 
ktion  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  have  by  legislative  usurpation, 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK.  247 

judicial  corruption,  and  arbitrary  power,  committed  a  crime  upon 
the  laboring  poor  for  the  benefit  of  the  idle  rich,  for  which 
"wholesale  swindling"  and  "national  villainy"  are  terms  of 
but  faint  expression.  In  this  legislation  you  and  your  ilk  have 
repudiated  a  large  proportion  of  the  debts  due  between  man  and 
man  in  the  ordinary,  business  of  the  country,  and  have  begotten 
a  system  of  "  swindling  "  compared  with  which  wild-cat  banks, 
Mississippi  poker  and  the  faro  gamblers  are  genteel  and  honest. 
Xor  does  it  acid  anything  to  your  honor,  or  mitigate  your  crime, 
that  this  "swindling"  and  "  villainy"  of  yours  was  soaked  in  the 
best  blood  of  the  land,  out  of  which  you  have  coined  the  gold, 
accruing  interest  and  the  bonds  which  bear  it,  which  has  meta 
morphosed  you  from  plain  Horace  Greeley,  the  printer,  into  his 
Lordship,  Hon.  Horace  Greeley,  the  bondholder  —  from  the  de 
fender  of  the  negro  slave  into  the  oppressor  of  the  white  free 
man. 

But  if  these  treasury  notes  are  a  legal-tender,  then  the  govern 
ment  cannot  refuse  to  take  its  own  paper  in  payment  of  its  own 
debts;  and  there  can  be  no  apology,  founded  injustice,  for  the 
demand  of  any  other  currency  than  greenbacks  in  the  payment 
of  duties  or  any  other  debt  due  the  government. 

The  same  reasons  make  it  obligatory  upon  the  bondholder  to 
take  this  money  in  payment  of  his  accruing  interest,  and  finally 
in  payment  of  his  bonds ;  also,  if  this  money  is  a  legal-tender, 
gold  and  silver  can  be  no  more  than  a  legal-tender.  If  it  was  a 
legal-tender  in  the  purchase  of  bonds,  so  it  is  a  legal-tender  in 
payment  of  bonds.  If  this  money  is  by  law  a  legal-tender,  then 
any  discrimination  made  by  the  government  in  the  payment  of 
its  creditors,  is  unjust  and  invidious.  That  the  laborer  who  works 
in  navy  yards  and  forts,  and  the  soldier  who  perils  his  life  in 
battle,  shall  be  paid  in  lampblack  and  rags,  and  the  bankers, 
bondholders,  usurers,  extortioners  and  brokers,  shall  be  paid  in 
gold  and  silver  bought  up  by  the  greenbacks  sacrificed  in  the 
hands  of  other  government  creditors,  is  an  offence  against  justice, 
for  which  no  pretext  can  be  offered,  and  involves  the  government 
in  every  possible  crime  included  in  the  euphonious  terms  em 
ployed  by  yourself  of  "  wholesale  swindling  "  and  "  NATIONAL 

VILLAINY." 

It  places  the  Government  in  the  attitude  of  a  swindling  bank 
rupt  who  involves  himself  in  debts  which  he  is  unable  to  pay, 
and  then,  to  rid  himself  of  his  obligations,  buys  up  his  own  notes 
at  such  discount  as  is  induced  by  a  knowledge  of  his  bad  char 
acter  and  insolvency,  that  he  may  repeat  his  swindle  as  often  as 
he  may  renew  his  bankruptcy  by  profligacy  and  extravagance. 


248  CHIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

This  very  thing  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States  has  been  doing  for  the  last  seven  years.  The  pitiable  and 
disgraceful  spectacle  has  been  presented  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  of  the  Government  Agent,  sitting  in  Wall  street, 
buying  up  Government  obligations  in  competition  with  the  sharp 
ers  of  Europe  and  the  swindlers  of  America,  including  the  bond 
holders  who,  taking  advantage  of  the  poverty  of  the  Govern 
ment,  bought  up  her  certificates  of  credit  in  their  manifold  forms. 
In  this  wise  the  Government  assumed  a  position  involving  one 
of  these  two  mortifying  conclusions  :  First  —  That  it  was  unable 
to  pay  its  debts,  and  making  a  public  confession  of  bankruptcy ; 
or,  secondly,  that  it  was  squandering  the  public  moneys  in  an 
unjust  discrimination  in  currencies  of  equal  value. 

The  payment  of  the  bonds  in  greenbacks  is  neither  "wholesale 
swindling  "  or  "  national  villainy,"  if  greenbacks  are  a  legal 
tender  in  payment  of  debts ;  and  if  greenbacks  are  not  a  legal  ten 
der  in  payment  of  debts,  then  the  payment  of  bonds  in  this  pre 
tended  currency  is  not  half  so  monstrous  a  wholesale  swindle  or 
national  villainy  as  the  imposition  of  this  paper  currency  upon 
the  laboring  and  producing  classes  of  this  country  in  exchange 
for  their  toil,  and  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  and  the  liquidation  of 
gold  and  silver-created  debts  due  to  honest  creditors,  untainted 
with  usury  or  fraud.  Indeed,  if,  as  you  assume,  that  the  pay 
ment  of  debts  in  greenbacks  is  a  national  villainy  and  wholesale 
swindling,  then  with  what  name  will  you  designate  those  who 
have  based  the  whole  public  and  private  property  and  business 
of  the  country  upon  this  "  wholesale  swindling  "  and  "  national 
villainy/7  refusing  even  to  recognize  the  difference  in  exchange 
consequent  upon  the  depreciation  of  paper  money. 

The  extent  of  this  swindle  and  villainy  —  if  it  be  swindle  and 
villainy  to  pay  debts  in  greenbacks  —  can  be  measured  only  by 
the  aggregate  wealth  and  business  of  the  whole  country,  which 
for  five  years  have  been  involved  in  the  action  of  the  Federal 
Government. 

To  pay  off  the  bonds  in  greenbacks  either  is  or  is  not  a  "  na 
tional  villainy"  and  "wholesale  swindle." 

If  it  is,  then  pray  what  apology  can  you  make  to  the  civilized 
world  for  your  participation  in  this  crime,  and  what  atonement 
can  you  make  for  the  privation,  poverty,  bankruptcy  and  robbery 
of  the  poor ;  the  crime  and  degradation  of  the  people  consequent 
upon  the  unnatural  inflation  of  the  currency?  And  how  can 
you  excuse  the  creation  of  an  aristocracy,  irresponsible  to  the  or 
dinary  laws  of  taxation,  and  building  up  a  system  of  monopoly 
which  absorbs  the  labor  of  the  poor  and  establishes  the  relation 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL  WAR.  249 

of  lord  and  vassal,  in  a  form  which  can  never  exist  in  a  free 
country  ? 

But  if  to  pay  oif  the  bonds  in  greenbacks  is  not  a  swindle,  then 
why  not  do  this  at  once,  and  in  one  righteous  blow  strike  down 
the  whole  army  of  assessors,  collectors,  spies,  pimps,  detectives, 
sponges,  vampires  and  excisemen;  with  the  unnecessary,  unjust, 
unequal  and  oppressive  systems  of  taxation  which  are  necessary 
to  support  them  in  their  detestable  vocations.  In  any  view  of 
the  subject,  the  payment  of  bonds  in  greenbacks  is  eminently 
just. 

If  these  greenbacks  are  a  legal  tender,  they  are  most  properly 
the  currency  in  which  these  bonds  should  be  paid.  If  they  are 
not  a  legal  tender,  then  the  men  who  bought  these  bonds  in  a 
valueless  currency,  cannot  complain  if  their  debts  are  liquidated 
in  precisely  the  same  currency  as  that  which  they  paid  for  the 
bond,  leaving  the  bondholder  in  precisely  the  same  financial  con 
dition  that  he  was  before  he  bought  the  bonds. 

The  payment  of  the  bonds  in  gold  and  silver  would  be 
"  wholesale  swindling "  and  "  national  robbery,"  by  which  the 
people  would  lose  twice  the  amount  of  the  original  debt  in  the 
final  payment,  and  twice  the  amount  of  the  annually-accruing 
interest,  as  well  as  paying  the  expenses  of  supporting  a  consum 
ing  arrny  of  officers,  who  devour  the  substance  of  the  people, 
which  are  themselves  an  incubus  upon  society,  to  be  dreaded  and 
abolished  at  the  earliest  possible  day  as  the  only  means  of  re 
storing  the  lost  liberties  of  the  people.  The  extent  of  this  fraud 
upon  the  people  is  measured  by  the  difference  between  par  and 
40  per  cent. 

If  the  greenbacks  are  not  a  legal  tender,  then  still  should  the 
bondholders  take  them  as  payment  of  their  interest  and  bonds. 
If  they  are  not  a  legal  tender,  they  are  a  "  wholesale  swindle  " 
and  "  national  robbery."  But  they  were  conceived,  created  and 
put  in  vogue  by  the  bankers,  brokers  and  extortioners  of  Europe 
and  America,  who  connived  corruptly  with  the  men  in  power  in 
the  United  States  to  perpetrate  this  wholesale  swindling  and  na 
tional  robbery,  to  overthrow  our  simple  American  system  of  gov 
ernment  and  substitute  the  odious,  rotten,  British  funding  system 
in  its  stead.  It  is  but  just  that,  failing  to  permanently  swindle 
the  people,  they  should  be  paid  in  their  own  money. 

These  brokers  and  "public  robbers,"  these  bondholders  and 
"  national  villains,"  should  feel  grateful  towards  a  forbearing 
people,  that  they  receive  anything  at  all  in  compensation  for 
their  crime  against  liberty  and  economy. 

But  these  certificates  of  credit  are  a  fraud  upon  the  public 


250  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

economy  and  the  labor  of  the  people,  which  supports  the  Gov 
ernment.  A  fraud  which  the  bondholders  well  knew,  and  bought 
the  bonds  because  they  knew  they  were  a  fraud,  by  which  they 
were  the  only  gainers  and  the  people  were  the  victims. 

These  bonds  were  hawked  in  the  markets  in  every  country  in 
the  world,  and  sold  at  merely  nominal  prices.  As  the  result  of 
this  stupendous  swindle  and  villainy,  we  have  this  double  spec 
tacle  of  robbery.  The  European  emigrant  flying  from  the 
standing  armies,  aristocrasies,  monopolies  and  funded  debts  of 
Europe,  coming  to  America  to  pay  tariffs,  stamps,  license,  and 
every  form  of  direct  and  indirect  taxation,  for  the  support  of  the 
very  system  from  which  he  had  fled  and  the  very  men  who  had 
ground  him  to  the  earth  in  Europe,  who  are  now  the  holders  of 
American  bonds,  which  they  bought  at  forty  cents  on  the  dollar. 

The  Federal  soldier  who  receives  bounty  and  monthly  pay, 
returns  home  to  give  one-half  of  all  he  earns,  in  the  various 
forms  of  taxation,  to  refund  to  the  bondholder  that  which  he 
thought  he  was  receiving  from  the  Government ;  and  for  the 
pretended  pay  given  to  him  for  a  few  years'  service  in  war,  he  is 
enslaved  in  perpetual  servitude  to  the  manufacturers  and  bond 
holders,  bankers  and  usurers,  who  have  grown  rich  upon  his 
blood  and  the  poverty  that  follows  in  the  wake  of  destroying 
armies ;  whilst  the  widow  and  orphan  of  the  soldier  pay  back  in 
the  increased  price  of  their  food,  raiment,  fuel  and  house  rent  at 
least  twenty  per  cent,  more  than  the  pretended  pension  which 
they  seem  to  receive. 

The  masses  of  the  poor  are  harassed  with  taxes,  ground  down 
by  these  levies  upon  their  labor,  until  they  are  robbed  of  the 
comforts  and  stinted  in  the  necessaries  of  life,  to  support  an 
army  of  civil  officers,  who  gather  up  their  labor,  and  the  military 
forces  which  are  necessary  to  enslave  the  country. 

I  need  not  remind  you  that  not  one  dollar  of  these  bonds 
cost  its  face  in  the  purchase,  but  I  will  remind  you  what  you 
ought,  but  seem  not  to  know,  that  although  Congress  has  the 
power  "  to  borrow  money  upon  the  credit  of  the  United  States," 
yet  it  has  no  right  to  squander  money,  and  no  act  of  profligacy 
of  one  Congress  can  bind  either  its  successors  in  office  or  the 
people  whom  they  have  misrepresented. 

The  payment  of  bonds  in  greenbacks  is  not  repudiation  in  any 
other  sense  than  the  payment  of  any  other  debts  in  greenbacks. 
The  Government  of  the  United  States  either  can  or  it  cannot 
liquidate  its  debts  and  redeem  its  credits  now  issued  in  the  form 
of  greenbacks,  bonds,  certificates,  etc.  If  it  cannot  redeem  them, 
then  we  have  already  reached  repudiation  in  its  worst  form  of 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  251 

bankruptcy,  and  have  sounded  the  lowest  depths  of  our  financial 
ruin ;  all  further  argument  upon  the  subject  is  uselessly  squan 
dered  upon  a  ruined  country.  But  if  we  can  pay  the  bonds  with 
the  accruing  interest  duly  compounded  for  twenty  or  forty  years, 
we  are  really  paying  them  off  every  eleven  and  two-third  years, 
leaving  us  the  original  debt  to  draw  interest  in  all  time  to  come, 
which  I  believe  is  our  plan  of  making  a  national  debt  a  national 
blessing.  We  have  also  left  us  the  civil  and  military  armies, 
which  still  consume  the  substance  of  the  people.  How  much 
easier  then,  will  it  be  for  us  to  pay  off  this  debt  at  once  in  green 
backs  and  save  this  vast  amount  of  interest,  and  release  the  peo 
ple  from  the  support  of  these  armies  engaged  in  robbing  and 
oppressing  them. 

But  if  we  cannot  pay  off  the  bonds  directly  in  greenbacks, 
how  is  it  possible  to  pay  the  interest ;  the  armies  that  are  genera 
ted  by  them ;  the  banks  with  their  multitudes  of  officers,  and 
the  usury  extortion  and  swindling  which  levy  their  exhausting 
contributions  upon  the  people,  and  after  this  finally  pay  off  the 
bonds. 

You  and  your  friends  complain  that  the  payment  of  bonds  in 
greenbacks  will  overwhelm  the  country  in  a  paper  currency, 
which  will  make  it  worthless.  Greenbacks  are  money,  and  there 
fore  a  legal  tender.  They  are  also  the  standard  and  measure  of 
value,  or  they  are  not.  If  they  are  a  standard  of  value,  then 
bonds,  property,  public  and  private  credits,  gold,  silver,  and 
everything  else,  must  conform  to  it.  If  they  are  not  a  standard 
of  value,  then  again,  Mr.  Greeley,  what  apology  can  you  make  to 
your  readers  for  the  "  national  villainy  "  and  "  wholesale  swind 
ling  "  in  lampblack  and  rags,  which  you  have  perpetrated  upon 
the  country,  as  the  leader  and  organ. of  this  particular  circulating 
medium.  If  you  should  undertake  this  difficult  task -of  riding 
two  horses  travelling  in  opposite  directions  and  fail,  you  will 
hardly  convince  intelligent  people  by  the  ,use  of  slang  phrases 
that  you  have  succeeded,  unless  at  the  same  time  you  shall  re 
lieve  them  of  taxation  which  weighs  them  to  the  earth. 

The  bonds  as  they  now  stand  will  never  be  paid  in  gold  and  sil 
ver,  neither  the  principal,  nor  the  interest  very  long.  The  question 
will  be  fairly  laid  before  the  people,  and  time  will  perfect  a  com 
plete  organization  of  the  horny-handed  laborers  of  the  Mississ 
ippi  Valley,  who  will  forget  mere  party  issues,  and  demand  the 
payment  of  the  bonds  in  greenbacks, —  a  release  of  the  idle  cap 
ital  now  enchained  in  the  funding  system,  and  its  active  employ 
ment  in  the  business  of  the  country. 

We  are  growing  in  numbers,  increasing  in  power,  and  com- 


252  CEIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

pacting  our  forces.  You  now  refuse  to  argue  the  case,  but  the 
people  understand  the  argument,  and  when  aroused  will  sweep 
you  down  like  leaves  in  a  burning  forest. 

Even  the  bondholders  will  gladly  seek  refuge  in  this  mode  of 
adjusting  the  public  debt  to  preserve  the  debt  from  absolute  and 
overwhelming  repudiation. 

I  will  not  call  in  question  the  modesty  of  a  gentleman  who 
procured  the  publication  of  his  biography  in  his  early  manhood, 
before  he  had  conquered  a  city,  governed  a  nation,  or  invented 
any  new  or  useful  implement  of  industry.     I  will  not  sit  in 
judgment  -over  the  fitness  of  a  gentleman  who  defends  wholesale 
swindling  and  national  villainy,  who  commenced  his  career  as  a 
journalist  by  catering  to  the  low  tastes  of  the  rabble,  in  the  in 
terest  of  the  second-rate  theatres  of  New  York,  who  leaped  from 
the  disgusting  pit  of  the  Bowery  to  the  lead  of  city  morality.     I 
will  not  call  in  question  the  candor  of  a  moralist  who  lent  his 
paper  to  the  use  of  the  monstrous  villainies  of  the  spiritualists  in 
the  days  of  their  wildest  absurdities,  for  the  purpose  of  selling 
his  paper,  then  laughing  in  his  sleeve,  gravely  informs  the  people 
that  he  did  all  this  for  their  benefit.     I  will  not  impugn  the 
motives  of  a  generous  hearted  gentleman  who  has  labored  in  the 
interest  of  agrarianism  until  the  deluded  people  have  built  up 
your  paper,  and  then  suddenly  became  the  defender  of  hereditary 
monopoly,  growing  rich  in  the  change  of  opinions  and  patrons. 
I  will  not  indulge  in  malignant  expressions^  in  regard  to  the 
courage  of  a  hero  who  tamely  allows  a  bully  to  break  a  cane  over 
his  head,  and  then  turns  to  seek  his  revenge  in  the  entire  destruc 
tion  of  the  civilization  and  glory  of  a  continent,  whose   best 
blood  has  been  shed  to  slake  his  thirst  in  an  appall ng  civil  war. 
I  will  refrain  from  an  allusion  to  the  honesty  of  a  lobbyist,  who 
pockets  one  thousand  dollars  as  a  gift  of  river  contractors,  and 
after  slandering  everybody  else,  seeks  refuge  in  libel  suits,  where 
the  truth  will  not  be  allowed  in  testimony  to  justify  the  publica 
tion.     He  is  certainly  a  fit  person  to  decline  to  argue  the  ques 
tion  of  the  payment  of  the  bonds  in  greenbacks,  because  it  is 
"  wholesale  swindling/'  who  denounced  the  taking  of  constructive 
mileage,  and  books  which  pertained  to  the  business  of  the  repre 
sentative,  and  afterwards  voted  for  the  same  gift  of  books,  for 
which  he  was  arraigned  at  the  time  for  falsehood  by  Dr.  Tom  O. 
Edwards,  a  Congressman  from  Ohio,  the  glaring  character  of 
which  was  so  flagrant  and  transparent,  that  many  years  after 
wards,  Geo.  G.  Dunn,  of  Indiana,  in  his  place  in  the  House, 
simply  recited  the  facts  which  effectually  silenced  your  batteries, 
then  directed  against  moderate  republicans.     This  circumstance 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  253 

loses  none  of  its  force  in  the  fact  that  your  assailants  were  your 
life-long  political  confreres.  I  can  scarcely  refrain  from  levity 
in  the  recollection  that  you  connived  at  your  own  arrest  and 
momentary  imprisonment  in  Europe,  to  give  notoriety  to  your 
self  and  circulation  to  your  newspaper  in  America,  and  then  be 
come  the  advocate  of  arrests  without  authority  of  law,  and  lent 
your  Tribune  to  the  entire  obliteration  of  the  safegurds  of  liberty 
and  the  corruption  of  a  generation  of  your  countrymen. 

I  will,  however,  do  you  justice  in  the  only  consistent  act  of 
your  life.  Having  yourself  taught  secession  as  the  leading  tenet 
of  your  political  faith,  you  were  but  carrying  out  your  own  prin 
ciples  to  generously  relieve  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  by  going  his  bail. 
Having  no  time  for  personal  controversy,  and  no  disposition  to 
bandy  epithets  even  with  yourself,  much  less  with  the  insects 
whom  you  so  properly  portray  as  in  control  of  your  party  press, 
I  will  not  waste  time  in  the  discussion  of  your  courage,  your 
consistency,  your  integrity  or  your  veracity ;  this  has  all  been 
attended  to  in  your  biography. 

I  therefore  again  renew  my  challenge,  and  hope  you  will  try 
to  exculpate  yourself  from  the  charge  of  particeps  criminis  in 
the  "  wholesale  swindling  "  and  "  national  villainy,"  and  argue 
the  question  proposed  in  my  last  letter. 

I  am  yours,  HENEY  CLAY  DEAN. 

DUBUQUE,  IOWA,  Oct.  1st,  1867. 


254  CRIMES   OP   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

•) 

THE  SACRED  DEBT. 

THE  debt  of  the  United  States  overshadows  all  of  our  con 
ceptions  of  the  value  of  property,  and  confuses  the  clearest  mind. 
In  the  computation  of  numbers,  in  its  attempt  to  apprehend  the 
amount,  it  stands  as  an  impassable  mountain  between  a  powerful 
people  and  their  prosperity ;  a  great  gulf  yawning  between  the 
exactions  of  their  government  and  their  liberties. 

But  there  is  a  part  of  the  unaudited  obligation  of  the  people 
to  the  living,  dying  and  dead,  which,  sacred  in  its  nature,  must 
become  so  more  and  more  as  the  objects  of  its  creation  slowly 
disappear  from  the  masses  of  the  people. 

This  is  that  which  will  forever  bind  the  consciences  of  good 
men  to  relieve  the  wants  and  promptly  pay  that  which  is  due  to 
the  widows,  orphans  and  wounded  soldiers,  in  pensions,  bounties 
and  back  pay.  Their  claim  is  the  price  of  wasted  human  life  and 
manhood.  They  command  the  sympathies  and  are  dependent 
upon  the  prompt  justice  of  the  country,  for  support.  The  care 
of  these  is  a  debt  of  honor  which  fairly  mortgages  the  property 
of  the  country  and  the  consciences  of  the  people. 

By  the  unvarying  usages  of  all  valorous  peoples,  the  true  sol 
dier  is  entitled  to  consideration  and  support.  With  Americans 
who  are  prouder  of  our  prowess  than  of  our  Christian  virtues ; 
more  emulous  of  our  acquisitions  of  territory  than  of  our  scru 
pulous  adherence  to  principles  of  justice;  more  reliant  upon 
physical  power  than  reason,  for  the  perpetuity  of  our  govern 
ment  ;  who  esteem  valor  as  the  highest  attribute  of  manhood,  to 
be  consistent  with  ourselves  must  support  our  disabled  soldiers, 
no  difference  where  they  fought,  or  whether  the  wars  were  just 
or  unjust.  This  obligation  is  primary  and  imperious,  and  ex 
tends  to  all  those  brave  men  who,  moved  by  the  love  of  country, 


CEIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL   WAK.  255 

imperilled  their  lives  in  defence  of  their  convictions,  whether  in 
the  Federal  or  Confederate  service  ;  each  acting,  as  he  believed, 
in  obedience  to  law,  and  following  the  direction  of  the  highest 
instincts  and  noblest  impulses  of  his  better  nature.  After  the 
first  impulses  die  out  and  the  ardor  of  sensation  cools  off  in  times 
of  war,  all  armies  are  recruited  with  unwilling  men  driven  as 
cattle  to  the  slaughter,  or  caught  as  fish  in  the  net,  having  neither 
the  power  to  resist  the  forces  of  conscription,  or  the  means  to  es 
cape  the  meshes  laid  to  entrap  them. 

They  obey  the  government  de  facto,  and  are  not  permitted  to 
enquire  after  the  government  de  jure.  In  the  late  mournful 
conflict,  four  gloomy  years  witnessed  the  triumph  of  arms ;  the 
suppression  of  reason,  the  supremacy  of  brute  force,  and  the 
universal  slavery  of  the  people  to  military  caprice.  Death 
planted  his  thorny  hedge  around  every  habitation,  and  no  one 
dare  cross  the  threshold  of  his  own  dwelling,  except  by  martial 
command,  at  his  peril.  The  Federal  soldier  was  conscripted,  and 
left  the  harassing  choice  of  being  shot  down  on  his  own  hearth, 
for  resisting  authority;  shot  or  hung  for  desertion,  or  blown 
away  by  the  enemy's  cannon  on  the  battle-field.  The  Confed 
erate,  in  like  manner  pressed  into  the  army,  was  stimulated  to 
active  warfare  by  the  invasion  of  the  enemy,  to  fight  in  defence 
of  all  that  was  held  sacred  to  home,  or  hope,  or  tradition,  which 
were  swept  down  with  a  reckless  and  ruthless  devastation,  that 
left  desolation  in  its  pathway.  Each  soldier  did  what  he  was 
compelled  to  do.  How  vain  the  unnatural  conception,  that  all 
of  the  essential  attributes  of  a  redeemed  and  glorious  nature, 
stamped  with  the  impress  of  the  deity,  may  be  obliterated  by  the 
extravagant  exercise  of  a  senseless  and  ferocious  legislation. 

Such  legislation,  discriminating  against  the  plainest  precepts 
of  justice,  and  most  palpable  behests  of  right,  are  the  basis  of 
our  current  action.  *  These  legislators  dream  of  the  burial,  of 
the  affection  and  devotion  of  the  child  in  the  tomb,  of  the  father 
who  fell  on  his  door-sill  in  defence  of  the  honor  of  his  hearth 
stone,  and  sanctity  of  the  family  altar. 

This  infernal  crime  against  nature  in  all  of  the  wicked  annals 
of  a  fallen  race,  never  has  been  consummated, —  never  will  be — 
whilst  the  last  lingering  scintillation  of  the  light  of  the  image 


256  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAE. 

and  glory  of  God,  shining  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  glows 
through  the  darkened  avenues  of  immortal  man.  The  child 
will  honor  the  parent  that  gave  him  birth ;  Nature  has  ordained 
it  so ;  God  has  rewarded  it  as  a  holy  duty,  with  the  first  promise 
of  long  life,  the  land  of  the  parent  and  child,  and  has  appointed 
the  earthly  parent  as  the  medium  through  which  he  preserves  the 
worship  of  His  eternal  throne. 

After  the  close  of  the  late  war,  to  rob  the  unfortunate  soldiers 
of  the  Confederate  army  of  their  pension  bounties  and  back 
pay  due  them,  and  their  still  more  unfortunate  families,  an 
amendment  was  proposed  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  The  enactment  of  such  a  law  is  shocking  atheism, 
which  blots  out  the  very  idea  of  a  father.  It  is  sacrilegious, 
and  erases  from  the  decalogue  its  great  commandment,  "  Honor 
thy  father  and  thy  mother ."  It  is  no  less  a  crime  against  charity 
than  an  offence  against  religion.  It  demands  that  men  shall 
withhold  a  just  debt  from  the  maimed,  disabled,  disfigured  and 
distressed  of  their  own  household. 

The  strange  commingling  of  angelic  aspirations  and  animal 
attachment  in  our  being,  will  forever  preserve  a  free  and  enlight 
ened  people  from  the  forgetfulness  of  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon, 
and  sufferings  endured  by  devoted  ancestry. 

Eleven  millions  of  the  most  refined  and  proud-spirited  people 
of  the  nineteenth  century  will  not  suffer  the  wrongs  repeated 
upon  themselves  to  obliterate  the  recollections  of  the  sufferings 
and  self-denial  of  their  fathers  by  the  same  relentless  hands,  nor 
ought  such  a  people  attempt  to  drown  their  sorrows  in  the  sea  of 
their  degradation.  Vain  creatures,  miserable  wretches,  lustful 
savages,  mercenary  robbers,  inhuman  murderers,  incarnate  fiends, 
whose  wicked  hands  are  bathed  in  the  hallowed  blood  of  inno 
cence,  whose  vile  passions  of  covetousness,  hate,  and  brutal 
amours  have  been  glutted,  but  not  satiated,  upon  defenceless 
victims  of  misfortune,  you  mistake  the  decrees  of  fate,  the  des 
tinies  of  fortune,  and  more  than  all,  the  unchangeable  retribu 
tions  of  justice,  who  dream  that  the  cruelty  of  tyrants  can  ob 
literate  the  instincts  of  our  being.  All  such  laws  as  the  proposed 
amendment  will  be  vain.  These  edicts  will  be  transmitted  to 
the  next  generation,  who  will  visit  the  consecrated  graves  of  their 


CHIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAE.  257 

canonized  fathers,  baptize  them  with  their  tears,  and  swear  by 
the  throne  of  eternal  justice,  to  vindicate  their  memories  and 
avenge  their  wrongs. 

Others  who  look  upon  the  fragments  of  the  bodies  of  the  im 
mortal  dead,  scattered  on  the  mountains  or  sinking  in  the  swamps, 
will  be  stimulated  to  retaliation  by  that  unutterable  horror 
"which  lends  poetry  to  the  distance  and  transfers  to  the  intellect 
that  which  before  reveled  in  the  passions,  and  makes  that  hatred 
a  duty  and  principle,  which  before  had  been  but  an  irritation. 

From  the  ashes  of  ruined  mansions  will  arise  poets  who  infuse 
the  notes  of  sorrow  in  their  national  muse  to  touch  to  tenderness 
the  enduring  passions  of  human  nature,  where  philosophers  and 
statesmen  had  hitherto  addressed  the  understanding  and  appealed 
to  the  interest  merely.  These  poets,  aroused  with  a  deep  and 
abiding  sense  of  their  own  \vrongs,  will  paint  in  colors  of  fire 
touching,  horrible,  revolting  suffering,  crimes  and  torture, 
which  the  besotted  public  journals  had  bespattered  or  suppressed, 
but  which  will  find  responding  images  in  the  chambers  of  the 
souls  of  those  who  saw  and  suffered  them ;  and  which  truthful 
chronicles  of  passing  events  were  suppressed  for  daring  to  ex 
pose. 

This  amendment  of  the  Constitution  will  not  modify  the  pas 
sions  of  the  generations  who  nurture  these  reflections  as  the 
only  inheritance  of  their  father's,  spared  them  from  the  ravages 
of  fire.  These  legacies  will  lose  nothing  in  either  amount  or 
importance,  transmitted  by  the  traditional  tongues  of  those  who 
participated  in  them ;  and  they  will  become  infinitely  more  pre 
cious,  and  be  preserved  with  more  care  than  profligates  bestow 
upon  the  patrimonies  of  richer  but  less  honorable  ancestors. 

When,  for  a  simple  difference  of  opinion,  such  a  civil  war  as 
ours  had  transpired,  and  the  generous  combatants,  forgetting  the 
conflicts  just  closed,  had,  in  a  general  truce,  kindly  buried  their 
dead,  and  with  mutual  forgiveness  for  the  hateful  past,  joined 
in  perpetual  friendship  and  alliance,  much  less  then  than  now 
would  have  been  the  fever  of  the  soul,  and  the  fire  of  the  blood 
enkindling  in  the  bosom  of  all  that  is  superhuman  and  sub-hu 
man  in  strange  combination.  Even  then  the  pride  that  begets 
affection  and  the  affection  that  begets  pride,  nay;  more,  the  affec- 
17 


258        .  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

tion  and  pride  that  begets  that  devotion  which  is  only  less  than 
worship,  and  partakes  of  the  nature  of  worship  itself  of  the 
dead,  and  an  adoration  of  their  memory,  will  reeall  all  of  their 
valiant  deeds,  and  make  their  very  vices  seem  virtues  to  their 
injured  and  insulted  offspring.  Long  after  the  names  of  their 
persecutors  are  forgotten,  and  the  stench  of  their  infamy  arises 
from  the  grave,  every  maimed  and  wounded  soldier  who  fought 
to  defend  their  homes  from  the  torch,  and  their  wives,  sisters, 
mothers  and  daughters  from  insult  and  outrage,  will  be  cheered 
by  the  children  of  the  schools  as  he  passes  by  the  roadside.  It 
will  seem  as  a  charity  of  heaven  to  bestow  the  good  things  of  the 
earth  upon  the  soldiers'  widow ;  and  his  orphans  will  be  accounted 
the  children  of  the  commonwealth ;  and  they  who  went  to  battle 
to  destroy  them,  will  be  called  their  murderers. 

Then  will  every  memento  be  readily  gathered  up  and  carefully 
laid  by,  as  a  relic  of  those  better  days  of  American  history, 
when  a  proud  and  noble  people,  smarting  under  insult  an'd 
threatened  with  invasion,  dared  resist  violent  usurpation  with 
arms,  to  preserve  their  rights  of  self-governments,  the  forms  of 
religious  worship  in  their  churches,  and  the  sanctity  of  their 
grave  yards. 

It  is  a  mockery  of  the  great  laws  of  our  being,  and  an  insult 
to  that  inexplicable  philosophy  of  sympathy  which  inevitably 
attracts  us  to  those  we  love  in  the  distant  generation  of  the  past, 
and  those  to  whom  we  look  with  hope  in  the  dim  distance  of  the 
future,  to  presume  that  military  orders,  legislative  edicts,  and  ex 
hibitions  of  governmental  brutality,  can  efface  the  veneration 
which  the  devoted  living,  cherish  for  the  immortal  dead. 

The  rancorous  denunciation  of  party  spirit  will  not  transmit 
its  bitterness  in  triumph  over  those  natural  affections  which 
have  their  deep  foundations  laid  in  the  commandments  of  God, 
and  nurtured  by  the  nobler  instincts  of  man.  This  was  a 
war  of  revenge ;  the  lowest  passion  of  the  human  soul  which 
God  has  benevolently  denied  to  nearly  all  of  the  lower  order  of 
animals.  But  it  will  scarcely  satisfy  a  whole  people  to  denounce 
their  fathers  as  traitors,  rebels  and  outlaws  ;  or  change  their  con 
victions  to  heap  upon  them  all  the  obloquy  of  the  vocabulary 
of  tyrants.  An  injured  and  insulted  people  will  slowly  rally 


CEIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAE.  259 

and  become  defiant,  will  repel  these  charges  with  eulogies  of  the 
heroic  patriotism  of  their  fathers  in  defending  constitutional 
right,  which  madmen,  robbers,  and  tyrants  had  invaded  with 
mercenary  armies. 

The  sullen  masses  will  scowl  at  the  charge  of  rebellion,  and 
prove  usurpation  of  powers  not  granted  by  the  constitution,  and 
stud  their  arguments  with  diamonds  and  jewels  which  were 
strewed  along  the  whole  history  of  the  ante-revolutionary  period, 
and  fixed  as  ornamental  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  in 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  in  the  teachings  of  all 
of  our  statesmen. 

To  the  charge  of  outlawry  they  will  challenge  trial  by  jury, 
and  proudly  point  to  the  records  of  their  courts  as  administered 
injustice  and  enforced  by  law. 

But  writhing  under  injustice  which  may  find  no  redress,  these 
people  will  nurse  their  untamed  passions,  and  grief  will  seek  ref 
uge  in  revenge. 

Such  has  been  the  historic  sequel  of  tyranny  every  where. 
When  inflamed  to  its  highest  frenzy,  revenge  is  more  than  all 
other  passions ;  lawless,  because  of  all  it  is  the  basest.  The  cur 
rent  checked  in  its  deep,  silent  course,  leaps  over  dams  and  ob 
structions,  seeking  its  natural  outlet  in  revolution. 

It  is  the  duty  of  the  Southern  people  to  care  for  the  Southern 
soldiers,  their  orphans  and  widows ;  a  duty  sacred  as  the  obliga 
tions  of  society,  whether  composed  or  decomposed.  It  is  the 
duty  of  the  Northern  people  to  care  for  theirs.  Here  is  the  great 
distinction  justly  drawn  between  the  two-fold  character  of  our 
debt,  what  is  funded  to  the  capitalists  and  what  is  due  to  the 
soldier. 

The  capitalist  pleads  his  aid  in  the  great  cause  of  the  war  and 
the  sacred  character  of  his  debt  as  a  reason  why  it  should  not  be 
repudiated,  but  that  is  doubly  the  stronger  argument  for  the  re 
pudiation  of  the  mere  bonded  debt ;  that  men  having  the  great 
est  amount  of  property  are  most  benefited  by  it,  and  can  well 
aiford  to  forgive  the  debt. 

The  battles  of  the  country  having  been  fought  by  the  laboring 
masses,  it  is  unjust  that  they  should  labor  in  all  time  to  come, 
in  slavery,  to  pay  the  extortioners,  usurers,  brokers  and  bankers 


260  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK. 

who  have  coined  fortunes  out  of  their  blood  to  economize  it  to 
their  children.  But  the  debt  due  the  soldier  in  both  sections  of 
the  country,  is  one  of  charity  and  honor,  which  it  is  cruel  to  re 
pudiate.  It  is  equally  unjust  that  capital  should  be  allowed 
to  get  rid  of  a  debt  which  in  every  age,  country  and  form  of 
government,  has  been  accounted  a  mortgage  upon  the  property, 
affections  and  hQjiQj  of  a 


CHIMES  OP  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  261 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

REPUDIATION  THE  LAST  REFUGE  OF  PROFLIGACY. 

As  there  are  catch  words  that  serve  to  cheer  multitudes  on  to 
the  ardent  ready  service  of  tyrants,  and  make  them  hasten  jubi 
lantly  on  their  way  to  the  most  degrading  servitude,  so  are  there 
other  words  that  dampen  the  ardor  of  good  men  in  the  manly 
pursuit  of  justice. 

When  men  would  throw  off  an  oppressive  yoke,  they  are  de 
nominated  rebels,  as  though  there  were  any  other  means  of  free 
ing  an  injured  people  from  oppression,  except  by  resistance  with 
a  force  more  than  equal  to  that  employed  by  the  oppressor. 
When  a  people,  ground  to  the  earth,  would  fain  give  their  earn 
ings  to  their  families  and  cast  off  the  terrible  yoke  of  debt,  each 
attempt  is  resisted  by  the  mad-dog  cry  of  repudiation. 

There  is  an  odium  affixed  to  the  word  repudiation,  much  more 
attributable  to  circumstances  than  to  substances. 

THE  EXTENT  OF  REPUDIATION. 

The  human  family  have  lived  in  perpetual  bankruptcy.  The 
account  books  of  the  world  demonstrate  that  nine  out  of  every 
ten  of  the  inventors,  business  men,  merchants  and  bankers  of  the 
world,  after  having  lived  on  the  labor  of  the  poor,  have  died  in 
solvent.  This  is  repudiation  in  its  most  absolute  form.  They 
did  not  pay,  they  could  not  pay  their  debts.  The  creditor  lost 
his  debt,  repudiation  could  not  go  farther.  In  full  view  of  this 
natural  condition  of  things,  THE  JEWISH  LAW  WISELY  PRO 
VIDED  FOR  PERIODICAL  REPUDIATION. 

So  carefully  were  the  inequalities  of  life,  the  injustice  of  men 
and  the  sufferings  of  the  poor  contemplated  by  Moses,  that  provis 
ions  were  made  in  the  Jewish  economy  for  the  liberation  of  all 
debtors  from  their  debts,  the  restoration  of  their  lands  and  the 


262  CEIMES  OP  THE  CIVIL  WAE. 

entire  emancipation  of  the  people  from  the  power  of  the  oppres 
sor,  that  in  the  year  of  jubilee,  there  was  an  universal  repudia 
tion  of  debts,  cancellation  of  mortgages  and  restoration  of  prop 
erty  to  the  former  owners.  The  justice,  wisdom,  and  policy  of 
the  Mosaic  law  is  the  admiration  of  mankind,  but  the  acme  of 
the  Jewish  system  was  repudiation  of  debts,  without  which  there 
could  have  been  no  jubilee.  Total  repudiation  among  the  Jews, 
was  a  periodical  remedy  for  oppression,  and  relief  of  the  people ; 
not  only  of  their  ordinary  debts,  but  this  remedy  extended  to 
the  return  of  their  lands  which  had  been  mortgaged.  In  the  terse 
language  of  Josephus,  "  The  jubilee  wherein  debtors  were  freed 
from  their  debts,  and  those  slaves  set  at  liberty,  which  slaves  be 
came  such  though  they  were  of  the  same  stock,  by  transgressing 
some  of  those  laws,  whose  punishment  was  riot  capital,  but  they 
were  punished  by  methods  of  slavery."  This  jubilee  was  the 
great  national  festival  of  the  Jews,  the  only  people  to  whom  God 
deigned  direct  revelations.  The  celebration  of  this  occasion  was 
just  in  principle,  wise  in  policy  and  a  necessity  to  the  poor.  This 
provision  of  the  Jewish  law  was  founded  on  this  great  axiom  of 
political  economy,  that  the  debtor  is  by  virtue  of  their  relation, 
the  slave  of  the  creditor,  so  also,  is  the  borrower  the  servant  of 
the  lender. 

Debt  begets  peonage  in  Mexico,  imprisonment  in  England, 
scandal,  suffering  and  servitude  every  where.  The  purity  of 
public  morals,  the  sanctity  of  religion,  the  freedom  of  elections, 
the  impartiality  of  the  judiciary,  the  independence  of  the  citizen 
and  the  dignity  of  free  government  cannot  be  long  maintained 
by  a  people  oppressed  by  a  ponderous  national  debt.  The  Jewish 
system  which  held  all  of  their  people  equal,  under,  subject. to, 
and  protected  by  law,  forbid  the  existence  of  transmissible  debt 
in  their  personal  responsibility. 

THE  AMERICAN  FATHERS  REPUDIATED  THEIR  DEBT.  His 
tory  will  forever  fail  in  the  attempt  to  present  to  mankind  a 
purer,  loftier-minded  generation  than  the  founders  of  the  Amer 
ican  Government  or  a  more  worthy  or  useful  generation  than  the 
creditors  of  the  American  revolutionary  Congress,  yet  it  became 
necessary  that  the  debt  involved  in  the  issuance  of  Continental 
Currency  be  repudiated  by  the  Congress  who  failed  to  appropriate 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE.  263 

money  for  the  payment  of  the  debt,  and  it  was  gracefully  sub 
mitted  to  by  the  people.  The  reasons  were  few,  direct,  and  over 
whelming.  The  people  had  just  escaped  from  a  successful, 
though  terrible  conflict,  for  freedom  from  a  foreign  despotism. 
The  largest  number  of  them  had  fled  or  been  banished  the  gov 
ernments  of  the  old  world  to  escape  the  crushing  taxation  con 
sequent  upon  the  national  debts  created  by  wars  to  maintain  a 
magnificent  sovereignty.  These  things  were  fresh  on  their 
minds ;  they  knew  that  the  debt  would  make  them  slaves  of 
petty  tyrants ;  they  anticipated  and  avoided  what  we  suffer  in 
helplessness  and  cowardice. 

With  the  overthrow  of  British  power  in  America,  our  fathers 
accomplished  the  suppression  of  a  rnonied  aristocracy.  The  very 
oppression  from  which  the  Colonists  sought  escape,  emanated  in 
a  national  funding  debt,  that  mortgaged  the  labor  of  every  British 
subject  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe  and  in  the  isles  of  the  sea. 
The  very  monarch  against  whose  oppressive  power  they  rebelled, 
drew  his  sustenance  from  this  funded  debt. 

The  aristocracy,  against  whose  existence  they  provided  pro 
hibitions  in  the  Constitution,  was  not  to  be  compared  in  odious- 
ness  to  the  bonded  aristocracy  proposed  by  the  funding  system  of 
the  United  States. 

The  taxation  against  which  they  made  war  and  fought,  was  in 
villainy,  oppression  and  magnitude  not  comparable  with  that 
with  which  we  are  now  oppressed  and  overburdened. 

The  Continental  money  was  never  redeemed,  and  thousands  of 
the  poorer  and  middle  classes  were  bankrupted,  by  the  failure  of 
the  Government  to  redeem  it  with  equivalents.  It  sank  in  value 
to  three  shillings  on  the  pound,  and  finally  became  utterly  worth 
less. 

Austria,  France  and  England  have  in  their  turn,  followed  the 
fortunes  of  war  and  repudiated  in  some  form  or  other.  But  why 
should  we  refer  to  Austria,  to  France,  or  burden  these  pa 
ges  with  the  dry  details  of  the  repudiation  consequent  upon 
the  revolution  of  every  country  in  the  world,  when  we  have 
adopted  repudiation  as  the  law  of  the  land.  We  have  spent  the 
last  decade  in  repudiation  of  the  highest  of  all  obligations,  our 
written  constitutional  contracts,  and 'finally  the  Constitution  it- 


264  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

self.  "We  were  the  only  people  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  who 
recognized  government  as  a  contract  entered  into  by  the  people 
with  themselves  for  their  protection.  This  was  not  a  mere  rhe 
torical  flourish  or  glittering  generality ;  it  was  a  fact  reduced  to 
a  system,  and  the  people  had  entered  into  a  written  agreement,  a 
constitution  for  their  own  government  and  the  restriction  of  their 
lawgivers,  who  were  but  their  servants,  chosen  for  the  purpose. 
Those  who  were  born  under  its  influence,  and  reared  by  its  be 
neficence,  need  but  its  mention  to  venerate  its  authors,  and  follow 
its  fortunes,  and  imperil  their  lives  in  its  defence. 

The  very  war  in  the  prosecution  of  which,  this  debt  was  crea 
ted  was  a  repudiation  of  the  contract  of  self-government  in  de 
tail,  in  its  substance  and  vitality.  Those  well-recognized  person 
al  rights  which  had  made  the  English  Constitution  the  pride 
of  the  Christian  era,  were  struck  down  at  one  blow.  The  free 
dom  of  the  press,  the  freedom  of  speech,  the  freedom  of  con 
science,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury,  the  Habeas  Corpus,  were 
repudiated,  and  all  of  the  Constitutional  interpreters  of  law  were 
made  subservient  to  the  arbitrary  will  of  every  person,  acting  in 
violation  of  law  by  military  authority.  If  this  be  true,  is 
it  possible  that  any  debt  contracted  in  overthrowing  a  system  of 
government,  can  be  of  binding  force  under  that  same  govern 
ment? 

Every  constitutional  element  of  civil  power  in  the  country 
which  was  by  law  invested  with  authority  to  contract,  was  in 
duress ;  utterly  incapable  of  contracting  or  bending  either  itself, 
or  those  it  represented,  for  it  could  represent  no  one. 

The  obligation  of  the  slave  to  work  for  his  master  was  purely 
a  legal  one ;  an  investment  of  money  under  the  protection  of  law. 
If  it  were  a  sinful  one,  it  was  the  sin  of  the  whole  country  and 
not  of  any  class  of  men.  It  was  the  sin  of  the  law,  not  of  the 
slaveholder.  This  relation  we  have  repudiated  with  the  full  sum 
of  three  thousand  millions  of  dollars  of  money  legally  invested 
in  this  particular  interest.  It  is  true  that  it  was  argued  that  this 
system  was  oppressive  ;  so  do  I  argue  that  the  debt  is  oppressive 
beyond  all  endurance.  It  is  argued  that  slavery  was  unjust;  so 
do  I  argue  that  this  funding  system  is  unjust.  It  is  argued  that 
the  system  of  slavery  was  cruel ;  that  it  was  used  to  enslave  the 


CKIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAE.  265 

poor  and  helpless  black  man.  So  do  I  argue  that  the  present 
debt  is  used  as  a  means  to  enslave  the  poor  white  man  with  the 
black  man,  to  make  them  both  the  servants  of  the  capitalist  and 
bondholder. 

It  is  emphatically  presented,  that  the  system  of  slavery  was 
transmitted  from  the  parents  to  innocent  children  yet  unborn. 
So  do  I  argue  that  the  bonded  system  of  our  debt  is  being  trans 
mitted  to  innocent  generations,  who  will  be  stinted  of  sustenance 
in  their  mother's  womb,  and  oppressed  all  the  days  of  their  lives, 
to  pay  the  penalty  of  their  perpetual  servitude  to  their  task 
masters.  But  if  such  a  repudiation  in  contravention  of  law,  may 
be  made  under  the  plea  of  military  necessity  for  the  overthrow 
of  a  written  constitution,  how  much  stronger  is  the  argument 
for  the  repudiation  of  a  debt  of  equal  magnitude,  under  the  plea 
of  a  civil  necessity,  for  the  perpetuity  of  a  system  of  free  gov 
ernment  in  which  the  distinction  between  the  rich  and  the  poor 
shall  be  merely  of  the  imagination  ?  It  is  argued  that  African 
slavery  created  an  overbearing  aristocracy.  So  we  argue  that  the 
bonds  have  created  a  most  offensive  oligarchy,  that  not  only 
claims  to  rule  society,  but  assumes  to  rule  the  government. 

The  Government  of  the  United  States  has  pressed  repudiation 
further.  It  has  prohibited  the  payment  of  debts  contracted  by 
the  different  Confederate  States  during  the  last  five  years,  and 
made  their  repudiation,  a  prerequisite  condition  to  their  re-ad 
mission  into  the  Union.  The  repudiation  of  these  debts  was  the 
more  remarkable  and  flagrantly  unjust,  that  it  was  an  unnecessary 
interference  between  the  debtor  and  creditor,  when  it  could  in  no 
wise  interfere  with  the  existing  and  accruing  relations  of  the 
citizens  of  the  States  and  the  Federal  government — the  more  so 
that  the  debts  were  not  all  by  any  means  voluntarily  contracted 
upon  the  part  of  the  creditors,  and  were  for  monies  borrowed  to 
construct  railroads,  and  all  of  the  necessary  machinery  of  civil 
government  without  which  people  can  have  no  political  or  social 
existence.  Debts  made  sacred  by  all  of  the  formal  obligations 
of  contract.  Debts  by  loans  forced  from  unwilling  people 
and  applied  in  the  ordinary  transactions  of  legitimate  business. 
Debts  forced  from  men  who  took  no  part  in  the  late  civil  war. 
Debts  due  to  soldiers  conscripted  into  an  army  by  the  supreme 


266  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

power  of  a  State,  acknowledged  as  belligerent,  whose  wages  were 
the  only  means  of  the  support  of  their  families,  were  all  repu 
diated.  The  total  amount  repudiated  is  quite  four  billions  of 
dollars.  Revolutions  never  go  backward ;  and  it  is  impossible  in 
the  nature  of  human  philosophy  that  a  revolution  inaugurated 
by  repudiating  all  of  the  paraphernalia  of  government;  repu 
diating  debts,  constitutions,  treaties  —  its  own  contracts  to  ex 
change  prisoners  and  every  other  obligation,  will  halt  by  the 
wayside  to  cavil  about  small  matters  of  honor  in  repudiating  a 
system  of  oppression  founded  in  fraud. 

TlIE  BASIS  OF  THE  DOMINANT  PAHTY  WHICH  INVOLVED  THE 
COUNTRY  IN  THE  DEBT,  IS  REVOLUTIONARY,  AND  FOUNDED 
UPON  UNIVERSAL  REPUDIATION. 

The  character  of  a  repudiator  is  most  strikingly  drawn  by  the 
late-  Senator  DOUGLAS  in  a  delineation  of  his  Senatorial  col 
league  :  "  TRUMBULL  was  one  of  our  own  cotcmporaries.  He 
was  born  and  raised  in  old  Connecticut ;  was  bred  a  Federalist, 
but,  removing  to  Georgia,  turned  nullifier  when  nullification  was 
popular,  and  as  soon  as  he  had  disposed  of  his  clocks  and  wTound 
up  his  business,  and  migrated  to  Illinois,  turned  politician  and 
lawyer.  Here  he  made  his  appearance  in  1841  as  a  member  of  the 
Legislature.  He  became  noted  as  the  author  of  the  scheme  to 
repudiate  a  large  portion  of  the  State  debt  of  Illinois." 

It  is  surprising  that  it  should  have  escaped  the  observation  of 
intelligent  gentlemen,  that  the  work  of  repudiation  has  not  been 
confined  to  the  action  of  Congress  as  affecting  the  people  of  the 
Southern  States  merely.  They  have  applied  it  to  their  European, 
creditors.  In  the  payment  of  the  interest  of  the  public  debt  in 
New  York^  the  Legislature  computed  the  interest  not  according 
to  the  monetary  value  of  treasury  notes,  but  a  paper  dollar  for  a 
gold  dollar,  when  they  were  worth  not  fifty  per  cent,  on  their 
nominal  value.  Here  was  a  repudiation  of  fifty  per  cent,  of  the 
debt.  The  same  system  of  repudiation  has  been  brought  near  to 
us  and  become  universal.  A  borrowed  of  B  in  1860,  the  sum 
of  §100,000  in  gold.  B  pays  him  in  August,  1864,  with  $100,- 
000  in  greenbacks,  equal  in  gold  to  $3 5,000 ;  a  repudiation  of 
$65,000. 

This  repudiation  extended  to  the  interest  on  the  widow's  an- 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  267 

nuity,  and  to  every  financial  transaction :  a  repudiation  of  sixty- 
five  per  cent,  of  all  debts  and  indebtedness  in  the  country. 

But  it  is  the  misfortune  of  government  itself,  that  repudiation 
has  been  general  and  enormous  by  the  United  States.  It  was 
computed  by  Judge  Woodbury,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  that 
more  than  $800,000,000  in  coin,  or  about  $2,000,000,000  in 
greenbacks,  as  computed  in  July,  1864,  had  been  unprovided  for 
in  Congressional  legislative  appropriations  since  1789,  the  date 
of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution.  Such  is  the  uncertainty  of 
the  claims  dependent  upon  •  government  liquidation ;  such  the 
enormous  repudiation  of  debts  which  seemed  just  to  the  creditors. 
Like  the  "  graveyard  "  in  the  Mississippi,  which  is  strewn  with 
the  fragments  of  ruined  ships,  warn  the  approaching  steamers  to 
carefully  feel  their  way  through  the  maelstrom,  so  will  shrewd 
capitalists  as  carefully  look  to  the  investment  of  money  in  the 
doubtful  debts  due  from  the  United  States,  contracted  in  the 
frenzied  heat  of  political  excitement,  at  a  time  when  the  country 
was  ruled  by  a  party  representing  a  minority  of  the  people,  to 
destroy  the  government  in  flagrant  opposition  to  a  vast  majority. 

But  there  is  no  fact  in  the  history  of  this  war  debt  more  start 
ling  than  this :  that  the  great  body  of  these  bankers  and  bond 
holders  were,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  but  poor  men ;  many 
of  them  helpless  bankrupts,  and  many  of  the  pretended  loans 
were  mere  collusions  between  bankers  and  government  officers, 
entered  into  for  the  purpose  of  creating  money  for  the  one  and 
power  for  the  other,  at  the  expense  of  the  people,  who  would  be 
required  to  raise  standing  armies  from  their  children  to  support 
this  power  and  contribute  taxes  from  their  labor  to  maintain  the 
funding  system. 

This  has  always  been  the  case  in  the  history  of  paper  money 
inflations :  that  the  pretended  benefactors  of  government  have 
been  simply  swindlers,  who  have  imposed  upon  the  people  their 
worthless  promises  to  pay  in  lieu  of  money  as  the  pretext  for 
their  robbery. 

This  is  true,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  in  every  country,  that 
the  government  is  never  assisted  by  paper  money  in  any  war 
Those  who  issue  it  amass  fortunes  by  the  issue.  To  this  one  our 
country  has  not  been  an  exception. 


268  CHIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR. 

In  the  history  of  insolvent  estates,  bankrupts,  merchants, 
contested  debts  and  repudiated  obligations,  which  make  up  the 
assests  of  the  last  six  years,  it  must  not  startle  mankind  that  the 
honest  people  have  thrown  off  the  yoke  rudely  placed  upon  them 
by  reckless  and  unscrupulous  tyrants. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  269 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

THE  CHARACTER  OF  THE  LOAN  WHICH  CONSTITUTES  THE  DEBT. 

THE  superior  virtues,  claims  and  character  of  the  public  debt 
Lave  been  urged  with  wonderful  pertinacity  to  demonstrate  that 
the  debt  is  not  only  solvent  beyond  contingency,  but  invested 
with  mysterious  charms  and  attractions  which  have  enamored 
the  slaves  of  their  masters,  and  set  the  people  begging  for  heavier 
tasks.  It  is  urged  that 

This  debt  differs  from  all  other  debts  in  the  fact  that  all 
other  loans  are  held  by  a  very  few  persons,  whilst  this  particular 
debt  is  owned  by  everybody. 

This  is  not  true,  and  if  it  were,  would  be  of  no  importance 
whatever,  in  the  force  with  which  the  debt  must  drive  us  to 
bankruptcy  and  repudiation. 

It  is  not  true  that  these  bonds  are  even  generally  owned  by 
the  common  people  of  the  country.  They  are  precisely  like 
other  bonds  in  every  other  country  in  the  world;  they  belong  to 
the  rich,  who,  having  no  use  for  their  money,  loan  it  in  the  best 
market.  The  very  small  bonds  which  were  intended  to  popu 
larize  this  loan,  were  scattered  broadcast  among  the  people  of 
moderate  circumstances  in  life.  But  the  great  laws  of  gravitation 
were  brought  to  bear  upon  them.  It  were  impossible  that  the 
scattered  drops,  puddles,  and  pools  of  water  escape  the  laws  of 
absorption,  and  not  find  their  way  back  to  the  sea  or  the  skies  ; 
but  not  less  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  poor,  the  moderate,  or 
even  the  middle  classes  of  society  will  control  or  hold  in  any 
permanent  form,  the  funded  stocks  of  any  country.  In  the 
United  States  the  first  year  was  a  failure  in  this  attempt.  Thous 
ands  of  well  meaning,  deluded  people  thought  to  assist  the 
government  by  buying  up  its  securities;  as  the  old  lady  gave  her 
feeble  breath  to  aid  the  hurricane. 


270  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

But  the  immediate  wants  of  their  families  soon  drove  the  poor 
people  with  their  small  bonds  into  market  as  an  inconvenient 
currency,  and  many  of  these  humble  speculators  lost  the  interest 
with  from  three  to  ten  per  cent,  of  their  loyal  investments,  and 
were  but  poorly  repaid  for  their  enterprise,  with  the  ardor  of 
their  patriotism  greatly  damped  and  damaged. 

The  gradual  contraction  of  the  bank  note  circulation  will  soon 
throw  all  of  these  bonds  into  the  market,  except  those  held  by  the 
capitalist.  This  will  press  down  their  value  to  a  heavier  dis 
count,  and  each  poor  bondholder  who  has  lost  in  the  sale  of  his 
bond,  will  then  sympathize  with  the  taxpayer,  who  must  meet 
the  accruing  interest.  The  abundance  of  the  small  bonds  as  a 
part  of  the  currency,  will  increase  as  the  currency  contracts  its 
volume.  Then  the  bonds  will  find  their  way  into  the  vault  of 
the  millionaire ;  will  be  bought  and  sold  in  Europe.  America, 
drained  of  her  specie,  will  be  unable  to  even  approximate  to  the 
redemption  of  her  national  bank  notes.  This  brings  the  direct 
conflict  of  the  nations,  and  revives  the  old  strife  between  the  in 
stitutions  of  the  old  and  new  world  —  between  ennobled  capital 
and  republican  labor.  American  republicans  will  very  unwil 
lingly  support  European  monopolies,  who  took  advantage  of 
their  internal  dissensions  and  pressing  necessities  to  buy  up  their 
obligations  at  ruinous  rates  of  discount.  To  get  rid  of  this 
perpetual  slavery,  any  subterfuge  will  be  sought.  It  were  better 
to  do  anything  which  would  bring  relief.  Repudiation  will  be 
declared  the  only  hope.  Repudiation  will  be  announced  as  the 
just  and  legitimate  remedy;  will  appear  in  platforms,  conven 
tions,  be  inscribed  on  flags  and  patriotic  mottoes. 

It  has  been  the  source  of  unlimited  assurance  among  bond 
holders,  that  there  could  be  no  failure  in  the  ultimate  payment, 
of  the  bonds,  because  the  government  was  so  pledged  as  to  make 
the  failure  impossible.  This  has  been  anticipated,  but  there  has 
been  no  greater  fallacy  urged  or  relied  upon  as  an  unfailing 
source  of  solvency  of  the  bonds,  "  that  so  many  men  own  and 
are  interested  in  them,  therefore  they  will  be  paid." 

In  looking  over  the  notes  and  list  of  debtors,  the  thoughtful 
creditors  are  much  more  concerned  about  the  number,  condition, 
liability  and  responsibility  of  their  debtors  than  of  their  co- 


CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  271 

creditors.  Now,  who  are  these  debtors  ?  They  are  the  people 
of  the  country  who  own  none  of  these  bonds ;  the  tax -payers 
who  pay  the  stamps,  tariffs  and  taxes  levied  for  the  support  of 
the  bondholder,  the  men  who  dig  the  canals,  build  the  railroads, 
level  the  forests,  enclose  the  prairies ;  the  murmuring  music  of 
whose .  steady-going  mills  coin  the  wealth  of  America.  These 
tax-payers  are  the  voters  of  the  country ;  when  they  awake  from 
their  slumber  in  defence  of  their  rights,  in  performance  of  the 
duties  they  owe  to  themselves,  their  families,  their  country,  and 
God,  will  rush  in  one  vast  moving  cloud  to  the  polls,  and  paint 
repudiation  on  their  banners.  Honest,  able  leaders  will  cheer 
fully  carry  their  cause  before  the  country.  The  very  same  mer 
cenary  hirelings  who  now  pollute  the  halls  of  Congress  and  bear 
in  their  pockets  triple  bribes  from  the  bankers,  for  bank  legisla 
tion,  from  the  manufacturers  for  votes  to  impose  tariffs,  and  from 
contractors  for  appropriations  when  they  see  the  temper  of  the 
people,  will  hasten  to  render  them  their  services  to  repudiate 
this  very  debt. 

When  the  legal  tender  is  absorbed  in  the  purchase  of  bonds 
and  burned  up  by  the  Treasury  Department,  or  which  is  just 
as  probable  in  the  corrupt  vascillations  of  the  parvenues  who 
have  been  added  to  the  Supreme  Bench,  under  a  change  of  cir 
cumstances,  should,  by  the  merest  accident,  do  right  —  and  de 
clare  that  treasury  notes  are  not  a  legal  tender  under  the  Constitu 
tion.  Then  pray  what  have  the  people  left  them  to  pay  their 
debts,  transact  their  business,  meet  their  accruing  taxes,  and 
carry  on  the  extravagance  of  governing  the  country  by  a  mili 
tary  despotism. 

For  any  of  these  purposes,  there  will  be  left  no  gold  and  silver 
to  bear  any  adequate  relation  to  the  business  of  the  country. 

A  speedy  return  to  specie  payment  will  be  repudiation  in  an 
other  form  ;  will  snuff  national  banks  entirely  out  as  a  taper 
light  is  quenched  in  an  autumnal  storm;  the  very  day  upon 
which  the  legal  tender  is  placed  upon  its  constitutional  basis,  the 
bank  note  currency  will  sink,  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco, 
full  one  hundred  per  cent. 

The  time  employed  to  go  through  the  farce  of  redemption, 
would  not  occupy  thirty  minutes  to  each  bank. 


272  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAE. 

Then  will  a  free  press,  not  suborned,  dare  speak  boldly  out, 
and  join  the  general  denunciation  by  honest  men,  of  the  whole 
mammoth,  murderous  swindle.  Demagogues,  catching  the  gen 
eral  current  in  its  charge,  will  also  change.  The  corruption  of 
the  tyrants,  who  have  trifled  with  the  public  liberty  and  appro 
priated  the  public  property  to  themselves,  will  be  exposed  and 
denounced  with  the  more  readiness  by  their  confreres,  who  will 
dread  the  public  wrath  none  the  less,  because  they  have  partici 
pated  in  the  general  crime. 

But  when  the  true  character  of  our  debt  is  fully  fathomed, 
bankruptcy  will  overwhelm  us,  and  repudiation  is  the  end  of 
national  banking, —  and  repudiation  is  inevitable. 

The  national  bank  currency  cannot  be  secured  against  insol 
vency  by  any  kind  of  bonds,  much  less  by  the  bonds  now  issued 
by  the  .government,  for  the  depreciation  of  the  bonds  carries  the 
currency  down  with  it.  The  history  yet  fresh,  of  free  banking 
in  every  State  in  the  Union,  where  it  has  been  adopted,  fully 
explodes  the  folly,  that  a  fluctuating  system  of  reckless  and  irre 
sponsible  State  indebtedness  affords  any  reliable  guaranty  for  the 
redemption  of  bank  paper  issued  upon  its  credit. 

The  property  of  the  country,  although  the  very  best  possible 
security,  is  not  a  good  guaranty  for  its  redemption.  If  the 
estates  of  the  country  were  put  into  the  market  of  the  world, 
they  would  not  command  the  amount  in  cash,  unless  the  bond 
holders  and  other  creditors  of  the  government,  would  accept 
the  property  and  relinquish  the  debt,  which  they  would  not  be 
insane  enough  to  do,  and  agree  to  bear  the  burdens  of  a  govern 
ment  so  administered  as  to  create  and  perpetuate  such  a  debt. 
But  when  the  naked  question  comes  to  the  direct  issue  of  the  de 
livery  up  of  the  property  of  the  country,  then  the  alternative  is 
easy,  natural,  ready,  popular.  Repudiation  is  the  refuge  of  a 
ruined  people  from  perpetual  slavery,  sought  with  eagerness 
and  accepted  with  joy. 

There  are  two  overpowering  causes  operating  to  make  bonds 
worthless,  at  the  very  time  when  they  approximate  to  the 
largest  fractional  part  of  the  available  wealth  of  a  country. 
These  causes  are  wonderfully  operative  in  a  government  like 
ours. 


CHIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAE.  273 

The  people  have  been  educated  to  freedom  of  opinion,  of 
speech,  and  of  action ;  but  in  nothing  have  they  been  hitherto 
so  free  as  from  Federal  taxation ;  scarcely  one  of  the  present 
generation  ever  saw  a  Federal  tax-gatherer.  They  were  even 
incredulous  as  to  the  existence  of  the  abhorrent  hordes  of  vam 
pires  that  suck  the  blood  of  labor  in  every  despotism  of  Europe. 

Every  religious  anniversary  of  the  country  was  enlivened  by 
graphic  pictures,  drawn  of  European  suffering,  produced  by  the 
hands  of  the  excisemen  and  tithe-collectors. 

Our  fourth  of  July  was  a  holiday  set  apart  for  the  purpose  of 
denouncing,  with  righteous  vehemence,  the  costliness  of  arbi 
trary  governments,  the  extravagance  of  rulers,  the  profligacy  of 
the  rich  and  the  consequent  suffering  of  the  poor.  Now,  when 
in  this  country,  the  road-sides  are  strewed  and  the  highways  be 
set  with  tax-gatherers,  men  are  unwilling  to  believe  their  own 
eyes.  The  audacity  of  these  leeches  and  the  innumerable  army 
of  them,  at  first  overwhelmed  the  people ; — nay  more,  they  were 
confounded.  The  tax-payer  has  at  length,  after  great  forbear 
ance,  commenced  murmuring,  and  one  universal  storm  hangs 
lowering  over  the  country ;  its  clouds  cover  the  sun,  its  vapors 
fill  the  air. 

When  thoroughly  aroused,  as  time  and  distress  must  arouse 
those  still  retaining  their  self-respect ;  and  wThen  they  speak, 
freely  as  men  must  speak,  who  are  not  deprived  of  their  powers 
of  speech,  they  will  grow  restive,  form  combinations  and  raise 
en  masse,  and  put  an  end  to  the  general  curse  entailed  upon  them. 
Such  has  been  the  steady  course  of  justice  in  every  age  of  the 
world.  The  time  may  be  slow  and  seem  long  to  the  impatient, 
but  it  will  certainly  come  as  the  immutable  j  ustice  of  God.  The 
terror  of  the  storm  will  so  gather  strength  -in  the  delay,  that 
when  let  loose,  will  sweep  clown  every  obstacle  in  its  angry  path 
way,  to  complete  repudiation.  With  how  much  less  of  good 
feeling  will  the  toiling  multitudes,  with  the  sweat  dripping  from 
their  brows,  covenant  to  transmit  this  accumulating  curse  to 
their  latest  generation. 

No  such  debt  ever  has  been  paid.     It  is  but  simple  justice  to 
candor  to  assume  that  no  one  believes  that  this  debt  ever  will 
be  paid.     It  ought  not  to  be  paid  unless  it  is  the  settled  policy 
18 


274  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

of  the  government,  and  the  full  purpose  of  the  people,  in  our 
revolutionized  condition  to  make  our  slavery  universal,  uncon 
ditional  and  perpetual. 

That  the  debt  should  be  paid  is  abhorrent  to  every  sentiment  of 
justice  ;  to  agree  that  it  shall  not  be  paid,  is  repudiation.  The 
payment  of  the  bonds  will  find  its  friends  turned  to  enemies, 
with  the  change  of  circumstances.  The  interests  of  men  will 
emancipate  them ;  self-preservation  will  intervene,  and  stand 
between  them  and  their  past  thraldom.  The  faithful  press,  un 
muzzled  by  military  power,  will  be  joined  by  the  faithless  press 
following  the  indications  of  the  popular  current.  The  working 
men  of  the  country  will  clamor  to  wipe  out  the  debt  and  forget 
it.  The  greedy  patriots  having  enriched  themselves  on  the 
spoils  and  plunder  of  war,  will  no  longer  remain  quietly  under 
the  taxation  of  their  stolen  property,  which  may  not  be  so  read 
ily  convertible  into  bonds. 

The  soldiers  who  fought  longest  and  hardest  in  battle,  will 
scarcely  accept  perpetual  bondage  to  pay  the  untaxed  bondholder 
as  a  boon  in  compensation  for  his  risk  of  life  in  the  terrible 
struggles  of  the  army.  The  same  bold  spirit  which  led  him  to 
the  war,  and  defied  danger  at  the  cannon's  mouth,  will  meet  the 
untitled  monied  aristocracy  of  the  country,  and  demand  the 
emancipation  of  labor  from  the  relentless  grip  of  capital.  The 
cry  will  become  general,  and  no  one  will  hear  it  sooner,  or  feel 
its  piercing  shrieks  with  more  terror,  than  the  bondholders  who 
are  drawing  quadruple  compounded  interest  on  their  bonds  and 
bank  stock. 

When  the  panic  comes,  and  come  it  must,  the  bondholders 
will  sell  out  their  bonds,  or  cast  them  upon  the  market.  Depre 
ciation  will  be  the  prelude  of  repudiation.  When  the  bonds 
have  gone  down,  there  is  nothing  left  for  the  banks  to  command 
a  dollar  upon,  and  this  is  repudiation  itself. 


CHIMES   OF   THE  CIVIL   WAR.  275 


IBOOIK: 

CR1MES  OF  THE  FUNDING  SYSTEM. 
CHAPTER  I. 

USURY. 

THE    OFFSPRING   OF    PUBLIC    DEBT    AND    BANKING.       AN    EN 
QUIRY   INTO    THE    CAUSES    OF    THE    FINANCIAL    DISTRESS 
WHICH   NOW   PERVADES   THE  COUNTRY. 

WHEN  the  most  beautiful  country  is  deserted  by  men  in  search 
of  homes  in  less  inviting  lands,  when  the  richest  land  goes  beg 
ging  for  tenants,  and  its  soil  is  choking  with  weeds  where  corn 
ought  to  grow,  when  the  taxes  of  the  people  in  a  simple  form  of 
government  in  time  of  peace,  are  so  burdensome  that  the  best 
citizens  are  preparing  a  voluntary  confiscation  of  their  property, 
and  from  necessity  suffering  it  to  go  to  sale  for  the  payment  of 
taxes  and  trivial  debts,  when  sheriffs'  sales  are  exposing  to  sac 
rifice  the  property  of  the  honest,  industrious,  producing  classes, 
until  the  value  of  all  property  is  merely  nominal, — it  is  eminently 
proper  to  inquire  after  the  causes  of  this  extraordinary  condition 
of  things,  and  carefully  apply  the  remedy. 

THE  CAUSE  is  EMBRACED  IN  THIS  BRIEF  SENTENCE  ;  CAPI- 

ITAL  HAS  ASSUMED  TO  PLACE  A  YOKE  UPON  THE  NECK  OF 
LABOR,  AND  LABOR  HAS  TAMELY  SUBMITTED  TO  THE  INDIG 
NITY. 

In  this  Republican  Government,  MONEY  is  A  KING  WHICH 

CAN  DO  NO  WRONG. 

Money  assumes  the  prerogative  of  ruling  the  country  and  de 
fying  the  laws  of  the  land. 

It  walks  boldly  into  the  legislative  halls  and  arrogates  all  of 
the  rights,  powers,  and  immunities  of  supreme  Lawgiver.  Money 
has  laid  under  tribute  the  labor  and  property  of  the  country, 


276  CKIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

controls  public  interests  and  public  men.  No  class  of  the  people 
receive  legislative  consideration,  except  money  brokers  and  paper 
shavers. 

Sliylocks,  who  have  been  the  opprobrium  and  derision  of  the 
civili2:ed  world  in  all  ages,  feared  by  the  poor,  detested  by  the 
rich  and  despised  by  all  men,  are  now  with  an  air  of  respecta 
bility,  intruding  themselves  into  courts  of  justice,  invoking  the 
strong  arm  of  the  law  to  enforce  their  fraudulent  contracts,  and 
give  reputability  to  a  business  outlawed.  Grave  teachers  in 
Israel  are  engaged  in  money-broking  and  demand  usury  at  the 
hands  of  their  flocks. 

Literary  and  eleemosynary  institutions,  built  by  money  wrung 
from  the  hard  earnings  of  the  laboring  masses  by  oppressive  tax 
ation,  are  made  the  pretexts  for  scandalous  speculations  on  public 
money  and  heartless  speculations  upon  individual  necessities,  by 
unscrupulous  men  in  the  promotion  of  their  private  business. 

The  evils  of  usury,  one  of  the  odious  forms  in  which  capital 
makes  war  upon  labor,  is  felt  in  every  branch  of  business,  in  ar 
resting  its  action  in  every  avocation  of  life,  thwarting  its  legiti 
mate  purpose. 

It  is  proposed  to  examine  the  rights  of  labor  over  capital, 
the  rights  of  property  which  are  assailed  by  money  unrestrained 
by  usury  laws. 

The  following  proposition  is  submitted  as  the  basis  of  our  ar 
gument  :  All  capital  is  nothing  more  than  the  super  addition  of 
labor,  either  mental  or  physical,  to  the  great  gifts  of  God,  which 
have  been  bestowed  in  common  upon  mankind,  and  ichich  by  na 
ture,  no  man  can  have  an  absolute  but  merely  an  usufructuary 
right  of  property. 

This  proposition  is  so  plain  as  to  commend  itself  without  illus 
tration.  Kings  who  claim  to  rule  the  world  by  virtue  of  the 
grace  of  God,  also  claim  a  hereditary  property  in  the  soil,  man, 
labor  and  all.  But  the  success  of  our  government  will  explode 
'this  traditional  nonsense.  Capital  is  nothing  which  labor  has 
not  made  it.  A  more  perfect  representation  of  a  splendid  poverty 
is  not  within  the  range  of  human  imagination,  than  that  of  our 
first  parents,  who  were  degraded  from  the  spontaneous  living  be 
stowed  upon  them  by  their  Maker,  to  the  empty  title  of  great 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  277 

wealth  which  was  bestowed  upon  them,  upon  the  condition  that 
they  should  labor  for  it. 

As  solitary  strangers  on  a  virgin  planet,  they  could  look  out 
upon  all  the  vast  wealth,  its  mountains  of  gold,  its  oceans  of  fish, 
its  broad  plains  of  inexhaustible  riches,  sufficient  for  the  support 
of  endless  generations  of  their  posterity ;  the  herds  of  the  fields, 
the  beasts  of  the  forest,  the  fowls  of  the  air.  the  fruits  of  the 
tropics,  the  sweet,  pure  waters  yet  undisturbed  by  the  convul 
sions  of  the  deluge,  were  all  theirs.  But  in  the  abundance  of 
the  earth,  Adam  and  his  newly  created  bride  could  reduce  noth 
ing  into  possession  without  industry.  They  had,  therefore,  to  go 
to  work  and  receive  their  daily  bread  under  the  restriction  of  the 
inexorable  law  of  their  Creator,  "  in  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt 
thou  eat  thy  bread  till  thou  return  unto  the  ground."  From  the 
day  of  Adam's  abandonment  of  the  garden  of  Eden  until  now, 
the  laws  of  production  have  been  the  same.  They  are  unchange 
ably  eternal.  No  man  can  make  an  honest  living  without  labor ; 
that  labor  which  either  originates  or  gives  a  new  form  to  some 
thing  else,  which  in  its  original  state  was  without  value  or  which 
increases  its  present  value. 

Here  comes  the  true  distinction  between  MAKING-  MONEY 
and  TAKING  MONEY.  He  who  adds  wealth  to  the  world  in 
more  than  an  equal  amount  to  that  which  he  appproriates  to 
himself,  is  a  maker  of  money.  He  who  appropriates  to  himself 
wealth,  for  which  society  has  received  no  equivalent,  is  a  taker 
of  money,  and  that  wealth  is  the  property  of  some  one  else,  who 
had  produced  it  and  by  his  labor  has  made  it  a  part  of  the  com 
mon  stock  of  the  wealth  of  society.  It  matters  not  that  the 
producer  cannot  be  identified  among  the  millions  of  the  earth ; 
the  ownership  is  precisely  the  same  as  where  the  owner  has  lost 
his  watch,  which  was  found,  and  by  a  singular  misfortune,  the 
loser  and  finder  were  strangers  to  each  other,  though  each  is  sen 
sible  of  his  relative  loss  and  gain. 

The  one  knows  he  has  found  that  which  was  not  his  own,  and 
the  other  is  confident  that  he  lost  that  which  was  his  own.  Though 
the  loss  may  not  be  repaired,  it  is  still  the  same.  Capital  cannot 
labor,  nor  can  it  produce  anything  except  under  the  direction  of 
the  intelligent  laborer,  to  whom  society  is  indebted  for  every  thing 


278  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK. 

which  it  enjoys.  Whatever  exists,  is  the  production  of  labor 
and  of  God.  Whoever  does  not  labor,  produces  nothing ;  and 
if  he  lives  at  all,  is  the  consumer  of  other  men's  labor  and  is  a 
thief  upon  the  wealth  of  society.  This  is  true  of  all  mere  capi 
talists,  who  are  consumers,  but  produce  nothing. 

Human  rights  have  no  greater  enemy  than  those  who  live  upon 
the  products  of  money  loaned  upon  usury,  cormorants  who  quench 
their  thirst  with  draughts  of  the  life-blood  of  labor. 

WHAT  IS  MONEY  ?   OF  THE  NATURE  AND  USES  OF  MONEY  ? 

It  is  impossible  in  the  nature  of  things  that  any  one  man 
should  produce  everything  necessary  to  his  convenience,  comfort 
and  luxury. 

It  is  quite  as  difficult  to  suppose  a  condition  of  things  in  which, 
by  mere  barter,  the  different  members  of  a  community  should 
entirely  accommodate  their  mutual  wants.  It  is  utterly  impos 
sible  that  even  nations  should  produce  all  of  the  varied  luxuries 
of  life,  which  are  offsprings  of  such  varied  climates,  soils  and 
circumstances.  Then  how  shall  one  nation  procure  the  products 
of  another  nation  with  which  it  has  nothing  to  exchange  ?  for  in 
this  case  barter,  which  is  used  to  accommodate  society  and  in 
dividuals,  fails  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  nation  from  which  it  has 
to  import,  but  which  has  nothing  to  export  in  return. 

To  remedy  this  evil,  there  is  but  one  plan  which  can  obviate 
universal  inconvenience  in  exchange,  and  that  is,  to  measure  the 
value  and  W7orth  of  the  product,  and  give  to  that  value  a  repre 
sentative  measure  which  will  command  a  like  value  in  some  other 
place,  or,  if  possible,  in  every  other  place.  By  this  means  the 
value  may  be  measured  everywhere,  and  no  loss  sustained  by 
change  of  location.  For  this  purpose,  all  civilized  nations  have 
established  certain  measures  which  they  denominate  money. 
Some  nations  employ  one  article  as  money ;  other  nations  employ 
something  else.  For  the  purpose  of  exchange  and  transfer,  the 
Spartans  used  iron.  The  ancient  Mexicans  employed  cacao. 

Barbarous  nations  used  various  measures  or  standards  by 
which  the  worth  of  houses,  lands,  cattle,  and  everything  else 
was  measured,  in  the  character,  value,  substance,  quantity,  and 
material  of  their  money.  People  have  differed  as  much  as  in 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAE.  279 

their  civilization,  arts,  arms,  science,  literature  and  religion,  until 
a  general  intercourse  of  civilized  nations  made  it  necessary  that 
a  common  substance  should  represent  the  value  of  the  different 
commodities  used  in  common  among  them. 

This  substance  is  designated  by  law  as  money ;  not  by  com 
mon  consent  or  custom  merely,  but  by  positive  law.  Gold  and 
silver  have  been  adopted  as  the  material  out  of  which  money 
shall  be  made.  But  gold  and  silver  differ  as  much  in  their 
relative  values,  forms,  sizes,  figures  and  shapes,  as  do  the 
measurements  of  weights,  superficial  or  solid  measures  of  other 
substances.  But  all  of  these  differences  are  dependent  upon  the 
statutory  law  of  the  several  countries  which  determine  them. 
There  can  be  nothing  less  equivocal  than  that  money  is  the  crea 
ture  of  law,  without  any  intrinsic  value  as  money,  except  just 
what  the  law  invests  it  with.  The  law  determines  what  shall 
be  money  —  and  herein  lies  the  great  power  of  money,  that  its 
value  is  so  determined  by  legislation,  that  every  piece  bears  on 
its  face  the  precise  value  which  it  will  represent  at  every  counter, 
and  the  amount  of  credit  to  which  it  will  be  entitled  in  every 
court  of  justice.  The  law  not  only  determines  the  value  of 
money,  but  it  determines  what  shall  be  the  specific  substance  of 
money  to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else  whatever.  In  the 
phraseology  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  "  no  State 
*  *  *  *  shall  make  anything  but  gold  and  silver  coin 
a  tender  in  payment  •  of  debt."  And  every  government  exer 
cises  a  like  authority,  and  determines  what  shall  be  the  ex 
act  value  per  ounce  penny  weight  and  grain  of  the  several  metals 
which  are  used  as  money,  and  change  these  regulations  from  time 
to  time,  as  it  may,  in  its  discretion,  see  proper.  But  the  power  of 
creating  money  is  one  with  which  no  other  person  or  power  than  the 
government  can  be  invested.  The  government  declares  in  what 
quantities  silver  may  be  paid,  and  in  what  sums  gold  may  be  de 
manded  by  the  creditor  of  the  debtor.  And  to  these  declarations 
of  law  must  the  debtor  submit  without  discretion. 

Money  has  no  competitor  and  can  have  no  substitute.  By 
legislation,  money  is  made  monarch  of  commerce,  banking, 
manufacturing,  agriculture.  It  is  as  safe  for  the  liberties  of  the 
people  to  allow  monarchy  to  rule  without  restraint,  as  it  is  for 


280  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

the  business  of  the  country  to  allow  money  to  exact  interest  with 
out  restraint.  Independent  of  this  legal  value  of  gold  and  silver 
they  would  be  a  more  matter  of  commerce ;"  and  in  times  of  finan 
oial  distress,  would  be  a  comparitively  worthless  one  as  are  gold 
rings,  gold  watches,  silver  trinkets,  &c.  It  would  be  uncandid 
in  an  investigation  of  this  kind  not  to  give  the  opposite  view  of 
this  subject,  by  the  two  greatest  writers  upon  political  economy, 
of  the  free  trade  school,  Jean  Baptiste  Say  and  Dr.  Francis 
Way  land. 

The  views  of  these  gentlemen  are  entirely  similar.  I  there 
fore  prefer  to  give  those  of  the  elder  writer,  Mr.  Say,  who  says, 
"  I  have  referred  to  custom  and  not  to  authority  of  government, 
the  choice  of  the  particular  article  that  is  to  act  as  money  in 
preference  to  every  other."  In  answer  to  Mr.  Say,  it  may  be 
said,  with  great  propriety,  that  in  a  country  where  there  is  no 
credits,  if  such  a  civilized  country  there  can  be,  it  would  be  of 
small  importance,  indeed,  whether  or  not  there  was  corned  money, 
or  any  other  legal  tender ;  for  the  people,  then  in  their  bartering, 
could  make  exchanges  of  such  articles  as  the  one  may  need  and 
the  other  have  for  sale. 

But  the  law  has  left  no  such  discretion  when  future  payment 
is  to  be  made.  Where  the  law  has  not  specifically  said  what 
shall  be  the  measure  of  value  and  how  a  debt  shall  be  paid,  it 
has  inferred,  and  by  construction  of  law,  that  for  all  debts, 
where  the  contract  does  not  positively  provide  for  some  other 
payment,  the  creditors  will  demand  gold  and  silver.  And  when 
the  chaff  is  blown  away,  the  sum  and  substance,  that  is  the  truth 
of  Mr.  Say's  and  Dr.  Way  land's  theory,  is  this, —  that  where  men 
choose  to  trade  horses,  or  barter  other  articles,  the  law  does  not 
interfere.  But  it  is  not  true  that  upon  any  contract,  the  payment 
of  money  due  is  to  be  referred  to  custom ;  but  it  is  the  positive 
demand  of  the  law  which  will  fully  enforce  its  claims. 

But  the  great  use  of  money  is  not  only  as  a  measure  of  the 
present  value  of  other  articles  in  trade,  but  its  chief  purpose  is 
as  a  standard  measure  of  value,  months  and  even  years  hence ; 
and  the  very  agreement  to  pay  such  contract  in  such  money,  is 
leased  upon  the  universal  recognition  of  the  legal  standard  coin 
of  gold  and  silver,  as  determined  by  the  government. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  281 

In  contracts  to  be  filled  in  the  future,  everything  is  referred 
to  this  omnipotence  of  the  law,  in  making  and  determining  the 
value  of  money. 

MONEY   IS   NOT    MERCHANDIZE,    BUT    A    MEASURE    OF    MER 
CHANDIZE. 

Money  is  a  measure  of  value ;  as  such  it  bears  precisely  the 
same  general  relation  to  the  determination  of  value  in  all  com 
modities,  that  the  yard-stick  bears  to  the  measure  of  cloth,  that 
the  bushel  bears  to  the  measure  of  grain,  that  the  acre  bears  to 
the  measure  of  land,  and  the  stone,  hundred,  or  ton,  bears  to  the 
determination  of  weights.  In  each  of  these  various  measures, 
the  law  fixes  their  size  and  makes  them  just  what  they  are,  and 
by  that  legal  adjustment,  the  amount  due  on  a  contract  is  deter 
mined,  where  weight  or  measure  is  stipulated  for.  This  argu 
ment  is  but  a  practical  truth  which  cannot  be  called  in  question. 
A  dollar  in  value  is  as  clear  an  expression  and  as  universally 
understood  as  is  a  yard  of  cloth,  a  bushel  of  wheat,  a  ton  of  hay, 
or  any  other  similar  expression. 

Mr.  Say,  however,  holds  that,  "  money  is  not  a  measure,  be 
cause  it  has  an  intrinsic  value."  It  is  true  that  gold  and  silver, 
lampblack  and  rags,  have  an  intrinsic  value,  but  they  certainly 
have  no  such  value  as  in  anywise  corresponds  with  the  intrinsic 
value  with  which  they  have  been  invested  by  the  positive  au 
thority  of  law,  which  confers  upon  them  the  despotic  power  of 
money. 

But  having  an  intrinsic  value  as  metal,  is  certainly  not  a  good 
reason  why  gold  and  silver  made  into  money,  may  not  neverthe 
less  be  a  measure. 

There  is  an  intrinsic  value  in  the  wood  of  which  the  yard 
stick  is  made,  and  the  additional  labor  put  upon  it,  is  equal  to  that 
much  timber  in  any  other  form,  or  in  anything  else.  Yet  as  a 
measure  of  cloth,  it  is  a  standard ;  and  no  difference  what  the 
fluctuation  may  be  in  the  monetary  value  of  the  cloth,  the  yard 
stick  is  the  unchangeable  measure  of  quantity,  because  the  law 
has  established  it,  and  the  yard-stick  alone  can  determine  the 
amount  in  measure  to  be  settled  in  legal  contest. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  material  and  labor  used  in  making  all 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

other  weights  and  measures,  and  is  true  of  all  the  coins,  and  pa 
per  money  authorized  and  established  by  law  as  money,  for  the 
circulating 'medium  of  exchange. 

But  in  no  weight,  measure,  coin  or  paper  money,  are  the  in 
trinsic  and  extrinsic  values  the  same,  or  nearly  the  same. 

Nature  and  the  ordinary  uses  to  which  they  are  applied,  gives 
to  the  various  metals,  wood  and  paper,  &c.,  their  intrinsic  value. 
Their  extrinsic  value  as  money  is  given  them  by  positive  law, 
which  appoints  to  them  their  uses,  and  communicates  to  them  a 
corresponding  value. 

In  this  light  does  the  law  treat  these  weights,  measures,  and 
coins ;  and  for  the  change  of  a  standard  measure,  the  alteration 
of  a  standard  weight,  the  mutilation,  corruption,  or  counterfeit 
ing  coin  of  the  Government,  the  forging  or  counterfeiting  of  the 
current  paper  of  the  country,  the  offenders  are  punishable  by 
law,  and  the  offences  classed  together. 

Measures,  weights  and  coins  are  justly  classed  together  by  law 
givers  and  historians,  sacred  and  profane.  The  corruption  of 
these  standards  is  an  offence  in  each  case,  alike  punishable.  Each 
is  the  creature  of  law  for  a  specific  purpose.  Money  is  a  meas 
ure  of  value,  nothing  more. 

THE  GREAT  POWER  OF  MONEY. 

I  shall  quote  from  Mr.  Say,  who  says  with  peculiar  emphasis : 
"  I  have  referred  to  custom,  and  not  to  the  authority  of  govern 
ment,  the  choice  of  the  particular  article  that  is  to  act  as  money 
in  preference  to  every  other ;  for  though  a  government  may  coin 
what  it  pleases  to  call  crowns,  it  does  not  oblige  the  subject  to 
give  his  goods  in  exchange  for  these  crowns,  at  least  not  where 
property  is  at  all  respected.'7 

In  some  impracticable  sense,  as  a  purely  visionary  theory,  this 
may  reflect  the  mere  shadow  of  truth,  but  is  not  practically  true. 
The  Government  compels  men  to  take  gold  and  silver  (and  in 
this  country  unlawfully,  even  paper  promises  to  pay,)  coin  in 
payment  of  debts.  If  Mr.  Say  were  to  sell  his  lands  in  barter 
for  houses,  and  the  vendees  were  to  fail  to  make  the  due  ex 
change  of  property,  the  law  would  unquestionably  compel  him 
to  take  crowns,  eagles,  or  some  other  gold  and  silver  coin,  equiv- 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  283 

alent  according  to  the  Government  standard  of  the  value  of  the 
property  delinquent  in  the  trade. 

It  is  from  government  that  the  specific  value  of  money  and 
supreme  power  is  derived  by  which  it  makes  commerce  and  men 
its  obsequious  servants. 

Again  Mr.  Say  observes :  "  Custom,  therefore,  and  not  the 
mandate  of  authority,  designates  the  specific  product  that  shall 
pass  for  money  exclusively,  whether  crown  pieces  or  any  other 
commodity  whatever." 

Mr.  Say's  "  therefore  "  is  logical  nonsense,  and  is  without  foun 
dation  either  in  fact  or  constitutional  law,  and  is  another  instance 
of  the  length  to  which  a  dreaming  theorist  will  go  in  the  face  of 
experience  and  the  well-settled  facts  of  life. 

But  as  a  ruinous  offset  to  Mr.  Say's  "  therefore"  he  admits 
that  it  is  the  use  of  gold  and  silver  as  coin  that  gives  to  the  ma 
terial  its  principal  value  as  metal ;  and,  of  course,  its  extrinsic 
value  as  money ;  and  of  consequence  its  great  power,  which  it 
receives  from  the  law. 

Of  paper  money,  bank  notes,  &c.,  there  cannot  be  so  much  as 
the  appearance  of  money,  except  what  it  derives  from  the  law 
which  gives  to  it  the  representative  character  of  money. 

Independent  of  law,  there  is  no  money ;  by  law  anything  may 
be  declared  money ;  and  money  is  the  king  of  commerce. 

The  power  of  money  is  never  so  apparent  as  when  it  brings 
the  exacting  creditor  in  domination  over  the  unfortunate  debtor. 
Here  money  commands ;  every  kind  of  merchandize  obeys  its 
mandate. 

As  a  consequence,  to  pay  debts,  executions  are  issued,  which 
must  be  satisfied  in  money,  and  here  the  power  of  money  is  abso 
lute.  This  power  of  the  creditor  over  the  debtor  is  enormous. 

For  though  it  be  necessary  that  one  hundred  fold  should  be 
sold  of  any  other  property  to  secure  the  gold  and  silver,  the 
property  must  be  sacrificed  to  satisfy  the  claims  of  the  law  in 
the  payment  of  the  debt.  The  scarcity  of  money,  the  unhappy 
condition  of  the  property  for  sale  in  the  demands  of  the  law  for 
gold  and  silver,  are  of  no  consideration  whatever.  The  legal 
execution  demands  the  money  in  the  payment  of  the  debts,  and 
no  loss  of  the  debtor  meets  with  any  allowance  at  the  hand  of 


284  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR. 

the  creditor.     The  gold  and  silver  must  be  paid,  because  the  law 
declares  it. 

The  law  interposes  its  strong  arm  to  assist  the  creditor  to  get 
a  certain  sum,  bearing  the  stamp  of  government  coin,  and  it 
compels  the  debtor  to  pay  that  sum  in  that  coin.  It  was  for  this 
very  purpose  that  gold  and  silver  were  bought  and  coined  to  ac 
commodate  the  people.  So  great  is  the  power  of  money,  that  if 
A  owes  B  $1,000,  for  the  payment  of  that  amount  of  money  B 
may  have  $1,000  in  cattle,  $1,000  in  grain,  $1,000  in  land  sacri 
ficed  to  pay  the  $1,000  in  money ;  if,  owing,  however,  to  the  pe 
culiar  circumstances  of  trade  and  commerce,  this  great  sacrifice 
of  property  should  at  public  sale  realize  only  $500  in  gold  and 
silver,  the  creditor  who  may  have  bought  the  $3000  worth  of 
property  for  the  $500,  still  holds  a  judgment  of  $500  against 
the  debtor  upon  the  unsatisfied  execution,  and  may  have  to 
sacrifice  another  $3,000,  or  any  amount  of  property  necessary  to 
secure  the  amount  of  the  remaining  $500  in  gold  and  silver. 
Such  is  the  supreme  power  of  money  over  any  mere  commodity, 
and  such  is  the  specific  power  conferred  upon  it  by  the  govern 
ment, —  a  power  conferred  upon  no  merchandize,  but  yet  a  power 
essential  to  the  existence  of  money. 

A  most  shallow  fallacy  of  the  brokers  is  this :  that  money  is 
like  any  other  article  of  commerce,  and  ought  to  be  free ;  and 
the  holder  should  be  allowed  to  sell  it  for  the  same  that  he  sells 
any  other  article  of  trade  or  commerce. 

In  this  brief,  false  sentence,  lies  the  kernel  of  the  argument  of 
the  usurers. 

If  the  law  had  left  other  articles  of  commerce  as  free  as  money, 
then  might  the  argument  have  some  force,  but  the  law  first  in 
terfered  to  destroy  the  equality  of  money  and  merchandize, 
which,  in  the  nature  of  things,  originally  existed. 

Now,  if  the  same  law  which  provides  that  gold  and  silver  be 
assayed  and  coined,  and  their  legal  value  stamped  upon  them, 
had  also  appointed  appraisers  of  corn,  wheat,  horses,  cattle, 
sheep,  land,  houses,  &c.,  to  give  them  a  fixed  and  definite  value 
in  the  payment  of  debts,  at  which  value  they  were  to  pass  cur 
rent,  then  the  value  of  gold  and  silver  with  other  articles  would 
have  been  upon  a  level,  and  each  article  of  commerce  could  have 


CRIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR.  285 

gone  into  the  market  without  embarrassment  of  legal  preference. 
But  this  was  not  done.  Gold  was  then  valued,  and  all  other 
property  must  be  sacrificed  to  meet  that  value.  So  sensibly 
have  the  financiers  of  the  different  States  of  the  Union  felt  the 
inequality  of  money  with  other  forms  of  wealth,  that  in  finan 
cial  distress,  stay  laws  have  been  enacted  to  atone  for  the  crime 
of  usury,  and  appraisement  laws  have  been  passed  to  give  all 
merchandize  its  relative  value  in  the  hands  of  the  law  of  the 
individual  State,  which  gold  and  silver  and  coin  have  by  the 
positive  laws  of  the  General  Government.  The  absolute  power 
of  money  over  merchandize  is  graphically  set  forth  in  the  fol 
lowing  extract  from  a  message  of  Governor  Wise  to  the  Virginia 
Legislature  : 

"  The  assumptions  that  money  is  merchandize,  and  that  money 
is  made  scarce  on  account  of  the  usury  laws,  are  not  only  false 
positions,  but  they  are  preposterous  absurdities." 

Money  exists  only  by  legislation.  Merchandize  is  the  product 
of  individual  labor,  or  of  private  enterprize.  Money  is  the  legal 
standard  by  which  value  is  measured.  Merchandize  is  that 
which  is  valued  by  the  aid  of  this  standard.  Money,  as  such, 
has  no  intrinsic  value.  Merchandize  is  sought  for  only  on  ac 
count  of  its  intrinsic  value.  'Money  is  perpetual  in  its  nature, 
and  is  designed  for  all  time.  Merchandize  is  temporary,  and 
adapted  to  special  wants,  and  made  for  wear  or  consumption. 
Money  is  concentrative — centering  in  the  keeping  of  the  few. 
Merchandize  is  diffusive,  being  required  and  consumed  by  many. 
Money  is  a  legal  certificate  of  value,  and  is  transferable  for  what 
it  represents.  Merchandize  is  the  tiling  valued  for  what  it  is,  or 
its  uses.  If  money  were  merchandize,  as  money,  then  a  yard 
stick  would  be  merchandize  as  a  measure,  and  the  cloths  would 
measure  the  yard-stick,  as  much  as  the  yard-stick  measures  the 
cloth.  If  money  be  merchandize,  and  a  law  is  passed  to  make 
it  so,  then  all  merchandize  should  be  made  by  law  money,  which 
would  be  a  literal  destruction  of  the  invention  of  money. 

Whatever  commodity  be  selected  to  serve  as  money,  is  invested 
with  a  special  power,  and  it  is  the  greatest  power  conferred  by 
the  Government.  The  proposition  that  because  a  man  possesses 
the  legal  right  to  demand  what  he  pleases  for  his  land,  his  mer- 


286  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

chandize,  and  all  other  property,  that  therefore  he  ought  to  be 
authorized  to  ask  and  receive  what  he  pleases  for  his  money — 
that  because  the  free-trade  principle  prevails  beneficially  in  rela 
tion  to  all  other  subjects  of  property,  therefore  it  would  operate 
beneficially  in  relation  to  money  —  is  a  proposition  to  confer  upon 
money  all  of  the  privileges,  as  to  terms,  that  belong  to  merchan 
dize.  A.  owns  horses,  and  houses  and  money.  By  law  he  can  let 
his  horses  and  houses  for  whatever  he  can  obtain.  Why  should 
he  not  have  the  same  power  to  get  as  much  as  he  can  for  his 
money  ?  The  substance  of  the  answer  which  I  should  give  to 
this  merely  popular  and  plausible  argument  is  this : — if  this  ar 
gument,  which  proceeds  from  the  creditor's  side  of  the  house,  could 
be  so  modified  as  to  place  money  on  a  level,  in  all  respects,  with 
merchandize  or  other  property,  no  rational  man  would  object  to 
the  change.  But  they  do  not  propose  equality  of  function  and 
power.  They  do  not  mean  to  equalize  the  powers  of  money  and 
merchandize.  The  creditor  says :  —  I  ought  to  have  the  privilege 
of  using  my  money  as  merchandize,  to  obtain  the  most  I  can  for 
its  use.  Very  well.  But  if  money  is  to  have  all  of  the  privi 
leges  of  merchandize,  then  merchandize  should  have  all  of  the 
privileges  of  money.  If  they  are  put  on  a  level  as  to  the  use 
of  the  creditor,  they  should  be  put  on  a  level  as  to  the  use  of 
the  debtor.  But  will  the  creditor  consent  that  land  or  a  bale  of 
goods  shall  be  made  a  tender  in  payment  of  his  debts  ?  Why 
not  ?  If  one  is  as  much  an  article  of  trade  as  the  other,  they 
should  be  treated  alike  in  all  respects.  It  was  not  the  design  of 
the  law  so  to  treat  them.  The  same  law  which  gives  to  the 
creditor  the  power  of  refusing  everything  but  gold  and  silver  in 
the  payment  of  his  debt,  ought  to  fix  the  value  of  that  gold  and 
silver.  But  by  this  new  theory  the  creditor  is  not  only  entitled 
to  refuse  everything  but  gold  and  silver,  but  to  be  the  judge  of 
its  value ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  demand  what  he  pleases  by  the 
way  of  interest. 

To  be  consistent,  the  law  which  confers  greater  privileges  upon 
money  than  upon  merchandize,  should  also  impose  upon  it 
greater  restraints. 

If  they,  therefore,  propose  to  destroy  this  preeminence  of 
money,  so  far  as  regards  its  use  by  the  creditor,  they  should  des- 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  287 

stroy  It  so  far  as  regards  its  use  by  the  debtor.  But  what  they 
do  propose  is,  to  extend  the  privilege  of  the  creditor,  in  fixing 
the  value  of  his  money,  but  not  to  extend  the  privileges  of  the 
debtor  in  the  use  of  his  merchandize.  If  money  is  to  be  treated 
as  merchandize  by  the  creditor,  merchandize  should  be  treated  as 
money  by  the  debtor.  But  to  treat  money  as  merchandize,  to 
give  to  the  creditor  the  power  of  asking  what  he  pleases  for  its 
use,  is  a  desecration  of  its  original  and  sole  design.  It  was  crea 
ted  by  government  as  a  test  of  value,  as  a  medium  of  exchange. 
It  stands  as  a  boundary  tree  in  the  forest;  neither  adjoining 
owner  has  a  right  to  use  it  for  any  other  purpose.  It  derives  all 
its  value  from  government,  and  government  alone  ought  to  fix  its 
value.  Money  pays  a  debt  at  the  will  of  the  debtor,  but  law 
recognizes  no  such  power  in  merchandize.  Money  has  a  mini 
mum  and  maximum  power  according  to  law,  otherwise  it  could 
not  be  a  standard  of  value  with  any  more  consistency,  than  gov 
ernment  can  authorize  unlimited  yard-sticks  or  unlimited  bush 
els  ;  but  prices  of  merchandize  fluctuate,  and  in  relation  to  the 
legal  standard,  according  to  demand  and  supply.  Money  is  the 
instrument  of  exchange,  of  settlement  among  traders.  Merchan 
dize  is  the  stock  in  trade  to  be  exchanged.  Money  is  authorized 
by  law  for  convenience,  not  profit ;  merchandize  is  produced  by 
the  labor  of  the  people,  and  for  profit.  Money  as  merchandize, 
ceases  to  be  money ;  merchandize  as  money  no  where  exists  ex 
cept  by  legislation. 

Money  exists  only  as  a  relative  agent  for  measuring  the  value 
of  other  things ;  merchandize  is  prized  for  what  it  is  itself. 
Money  is  an  agent  to  promote  want,  merchandize  supplies  want. 
Money  saves  labor,  merchandize  sustains  it.  Money  makes  the 
price,  merchandize  pays  it.  Money  is  borrowed  and  loaned, 
merchandize  is  bought  and  sold.  Whatever  may  be  said  to  the 
contrary,  these  fundamental  distinctions  are  universally  acknowl 
edged  ;  for  while  people  are  content  to  borrow  money  on  special 
terms  of  security,  all  are  earnest  to  sell  merchandize  on  credit 
and  without  security.  Purchasers  of  merchandize  are  politely 
and  urgently  solicited  to  buy,  while  borrowers  of  money  are  cere 
moniously  permitted  to  make  their  propositions.  As  all  pro 
ducts  designed  for  use,  or  ornament,  or  consumption,  are  to  be 


288  CEIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR. 

weighed,  measured,  tested  or  valued,  the  governments  of  all  na 
tions  prescribe  by  law  the  means,  and  hence,  we  have  weights, 
measures,  tests  and  money  so  ordered,  that  all  may  understand 
their  uses  and  render  them  available  at  the  least  possible  ex 
pense.  Such  instruments,  designed  by  government  for  the  con 
venience  of  the  people,  require  the  protecting  power  of  the  most 
stringent  laws. 

MONEY  IS  THE  PROPERTY  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT  FROM  WHICH 
IT  RECEIVES  ALL  ITS  POWERS,  AND  IT  IS  THE  DUTY  OF  THE 
GOVERNMENT  TO  RESTRAIN  THOSE  POWERS  BY  USURY  LAWS. 

There  must  always  be  made  in  the  discussion  of  questions 
in  political  economy,  as  there  is  in  the  nature  of  things  a  clear 
distinction  between  the  property  which  a  man  has  by  virtue  of 
his  own  right  and  the  property  with  which  he  is  invested  by  a 
public  franchise,  or  office. 

The  first  is  inherent,  and  according  to  the  fundamental  prin 
ciples  of  our  government  and  institutions,  indefeasible.  The 
other  is  purely  conventional  and  derivative  from  the  govern 
ment  dependent  upon  it,  and  may  be  either  perpetuated  or  de 
stroyed  by  it. 

Of  the  classes  of  public  franchise  or  public  property  created 
for  private  use,  in  which  men  have  no  real,  but  a  usufructuary 
right  of  property,  there  are  many,  but  this  one  general  charac 
ter  they  all  have  in  common.  They  are  the  creatures  of  Law, 
and  can  claim  no  higher  origin  than  Statute  Law ;  in  it  they 
live,  and  move  and  have  their  being,  and  it  is  a  great  perver 
sion  of  those  sacred  principles  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  all 
law  and  all  government,  and  the  Constitutional  rights  of  men, 
to  confound  these  franchises  with  that  absolute  property  which 
every  man,  by  nature,  has  a  right  to  —  in  the  fruits  of  the  land 
planted  by  his  own  hands  —  in  wild  beasts  subdued  by  his  own 
powers  —  in  tame  animals  raised  by  his  own  industry  —  in  all 
the  legitimate  fruits  of  his  own  labor. 

Of  these  mere  creatures  of  the  law,  we  may  emimerate  but  a 
few  of  the  classes  which  are  rather  inconveniences  of  society 
than  the  rights  of  any  individual.  Of  these  are, 

1.  All  weights,  measures,  and  standards  of  every  kind. 


CRIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR.  289 

2.  All  ferries,  highways,  bridges,  and  public  buildings. 

3.  All  offices,  ministerial,  judicial  and  executive. 

In  the  first  class,  we  very  justly  place  money,  which  is,  as  has 
been  proven  above,  the  measure  of  value,  as  it  is  ascribed  to 
every  species  of  property. 

The  legitimate  use  of  money  is  entirely  analogous  to  public 
franchises,  which  derive  their  entire  power  from  legislation ;  and 
because  the  law  has  invested  them  with  power  which  by  abuse, 
might  become  the  source  of  a  grievous  public  annoyance.  The 
law,  with  great  wisdom  and  justice,  restrains  their  power  to  abuse 
their  trust  and  prevent  that  which  was  intended  as  a  public  con 
venience,  from  being  employed  as  the  pretext  and  machinery  of 
private  robbery. 

Of  this  class  of  franchises,  I  choose  for  illustration  the  Ferry, 
whose  rates  of  charges  are  fixed  by  law,  because  their  special 
license  prevents  competition  and  divests  the  public  of  its  right 
of  choice  of  common  carriers ;  and  of  consequence  leaves  to  the 
discretion  of  the  Ferryman  what  the  rate  of  his  conveyance  may 
be,  and  unless  restricted  by  law,  would  be  a  source  of  public  op 
pression. 

Hacks,  licensed  by  city  authorities,  are  for  the  same  reason 
subjected  to  the  same  law  of  rates  and  charges.  Since  their  busi 
ness  is  created  by  law,  the  law  has  a  right  to  regulate  its  powers. 
The  lists  might  be  extended,  but  enough  for  the  purpose  has 
been  adduced. 

Public  offices,  which  are  created  by  law  for  the  same  reason, 
are  restrained  by  law  in  the  receipt  of  fees  to  a  stipulated  sum, 
for  the  very  just  reason  that  the  law  which  gives  compensation  at 
all,  has  the  indisputable  right  to  say  how  much  that  compensa 
tion  shall  be.  Otherwise  public  officers  would  be  but  instru 
ments  and  engines  of  despotism. 

So,  money  which  is  made  by  the  law,  for  purposes  of  com 
merce  merely,  is  very  properly  restrained  in  the  amount  of  inter 
est  which  it  may  demand.  Otherwise,  money  which  was  made 
as  the  measure  of  the  value  of  merchandize,  becomes  the  pretext 
of  its  universal  sacrifice  and  depreciation,  if  not  its  destruction. 

Money  is  the  same  kind  of  property  vested  in  the  government 
as  are  highways,  offices  and  other  franchises  of  a  similar  charao 
19 


290  CEIMES   OP   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

ter.  And  the  government  has  precisely  the  same  right  to  control, 
direct  and  restrain  the  one,  as  it  has  to  govern  the  other. 

The  analogies  between  these  franchises  are  natural  and  striking. 

Money  is  very  properly  likened  to  a  highway  in  which  every 
man  has  a  usufructuary  interest,  but  in  which  no  man  has  an 
exclusive  right.  The  analogy  of  the  power  of  creation  and  reg 
ulation  is  complete. 

The  highway,  not  without  intrinsic  value  for  purposes  of  agri 
culture,  in  its  appropriation  to  the  public  service,  becomes  essen 
tial  to  the  prosecution  of  the  business  and  enjoyment  of  the  people, 
and  indispensable  to  the  transportation  of  the  country.  On  the 
other  hand,  gold  and  silver  have  an  intrinsic  value,  but  when 
made  into  money  they  are  absolutely  necessary  to  the  existence 
of  commerce  —  they  are  both  the  creatures  of  law;  each  is  made 
under  the  direction  of,  and  supported  by  law.  As  the  government 
taxes  the  people  for  the  coining  of  money,  so  the  people  are  taxed 
to  keep  up  the  highway,  that  no  man  dare  obstruct  it.  And  in 
every  civilized  country  the  circulation  of  money  is  most  carefully 
guarded  from  obstruction.  The  interest  which  every  ma»  has  in 
the  unobstructed  highway  and  the  free  circulation  of  a  sound 
currency,  is  personal  as  well  as  public.  If  the  highway  be  ob 
structed,  the  necessary  comforts  and  luxuries  of  life  which  are 
borne  upon  it,  are  cheaper  or  dearer,  just  as  it  is  obstructed  or 
free  from  obstruction.  Precisely  the  same  effect  is  produced  in 
making  it  difficult  to  obtain  the  same  articles  by  the  obstruction 
of  the  circulation  of  money. 

Who  will  pretend  that  it  is  not  the  duty  of  the  government, 
which  builds  the  highway  for  the  public  at  the  public  expense, 
to  protect  the  public  in  the  enjoyment  of  if;  against  nuisances  of 
every  kind  ?  What  would  be  the  public  feeling  if  any  man 
should  presume,  contrary  to  the  law,  to  gather  toll  of  travellers 
for  his  own  personal  use?  But  suppose  some  man  should  ob 
struct  the  road  permanently,  that  he  might  hire  his  own  team  to 
assist  travellers  to  pass  by  his  own  house  and  thereby  secure  to 
himself  enormous  fees  for  his  labor ;  would  society  tolerate  it  ? 
Could  any  law  give  protection  to  such  marauders  ?  But  money 
is  no  more  than  a  highway.  Like  it,  it  is  made  by  law  for  the 
use  of  the  people.  Just  as  the  obstruction  of  the  public  highway 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  291 

affects  every  traveler,  so  does  the  obstruction  of  the  circulation 
of  the  currency  of  a  country  affect  every  man.  But  it  especially 
affects  the  poor  who  are  dependent  on  money  to  procure  their 
daily  bread,  their  raiment,  their  house-rent  and  their  fuel.  To 
obstruct  the  free  circulation  of  money  by  usury,  is  a  refined 
method  of  Political  Economy  for  starving  and  enslaving  the 
poorer  classes,  which  they  feel,  as  though  it  were  positively  done 
by  law.  But  this  state  of  things  is  induced  by  the  prevalence 
of  usury.  Money  serves  the  same  purpose  in  the  commercial 
world,  which  a  public  officer  does  in  the  administration  of  law. 
Money  bears  precisely  the  same  relation  to  the  commerce  of 
the  country  which  a  Judge  bears  to  the  administration  of  justice. 
The  obstruction  of  justice  by  bribery  is  precisely  the  same  kind 
of  offence  as  the  obstruction  of  commerce  by  usury.  What  would 
be  the  condition  of  the  country  when  a  Judge  could  be  hired  for 
the  individual  purposes  of  a  man  who  chanced  to  have  a  suit  in 
court?  And  what  must  be  the  commercial  condition  of  the 
country  when  the  medium  of  circulation  is  turned  from  its  legiti 
mate  purposes  by  brokers,  usurers  and  paper-shavers  ?  But  how 
much  more  deplorable  is  the  evil,  when  the  currency  is  turned 
from  the  general  purposes  of  business  and  is  made  subservient  to 
the  oppression  of  the  poor,  the  affliction  of  the  unfortunate,  and 
the  general  ruin  of  the  country  ?  Can  any  country  long  survive 
such  enormous  wrongs?  The  money  of  the  country  may  be 
properly  compared  to  the  blood  of  the  physical  system,  without 
which  the  limbs  would  be  powerless.  Any  obstruction  in  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  seriously  and  dangerously  affects  the 
health,  producing  palsy  in  the  limbs,  or  apoplexy  in  the  brain. 
This  indeed  is  a  true  picture  of  our  country  at  the  present  time, 
which  is  paralyzed  in  all  its  extremities  with  festering  corrup 
tion,  and  apoplexy  in  all  the  great  centres  of  trade.  Just  as 
blood  is  the  life  of  the  man  and  a  regulator  of  the  health,  and  a 
distributor  of  vitality  to  every  part  of  the  system,  so  is  money  to 
commerce  and  business  of  every  kind.  Now  when  the  same 
power  is  given  by  law  to  other  property  in  commanding  a  posi 
tive  value  in  the  payment  of  debts  which  is  now  given  to  gold 
and  silver  coin  for  the  same  purpose,  then  may  all  usury  laws 
cease  to  be  a  necessary  protection  against  the  dangerous  power  of 


292  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

money,  but  not  until  then  would  it  be  just,  or  right,  or  good 
policy,  or  safe  to  repeal  the  usury  laws  of  the  country,  or  leave 
the  immense  power  of  money  without  any  restraint. 

It  will  be  conceded  by  every  practical  man,  that  money  is  a 
necessary  medium  of  exchange,  that  its  power  as  a  measure  of 
value  is  an  essential  element  of  the  money  itself. 

But  since  the  power  given  it  by  the  Government,  as  money, 
is  the  source  of  its  own  positive  value,  which,  when  unrestrained, 
becomes  monstrous,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  remove 
every  possible  obstruction  in  their  power  to  its  free  circulation, 
so  that  as  the  blood  in  the  human  body  imparts  life  to  all  the  ex 
tremities,  money,  as  a  circulating  medium,  shall  pass  as  a  measure 
of  exchange  and  value  of  commerce  to  every  part  of  community, 
discharging  its  offices  as  the  financial  servant  of  the  people  in 
every  department  of  business,  imparting  vitality  to  the  commerce 
of  the  whole  country. 

To  effect  this  purpose  it  is  necessary  that  the  rate  of  interest 
be  so  regulated  by  law  that  it  will  be  to  the  advantage  of  all  men 
not  to  retain  money  as  a  fluctuating  commodity,  but  to  use  it  as 
a  standard  measure  of  the  value  of  other  things  which  they  may 
purchase  with  it. 

What  would  be  the  skill  and  science  of  the  physician  who 
would  recommend  a  system  of  health  based  upon  the  theory  that 
the  vitality  would  be  as  perfect  when  the  blood  is  obstructed,  and 
cannot  circulate  through  the  human  body  as  when  it  was  unob 
structed  and  free  ?  But  precisely  such  a  political  economist  is  he 
who  recommends  obstructions  to  the  free  circulation  of  money, 
by  allowing  enormous  rates  of  interest,  or  what  is  the  same,  op 
poses  the  arrest  of  the  great  wrong  of  usury. 

The  money  of  the  country  is  essential  to  the  transaction  of  its 
business.  No  trade  can  be  carried  on  without  money.  The  mer 
chant  must  have  money  to  buy  his  goods,  the  manufacturer  to 
pay  his  hands  and  to  purchase  the  raw  material,  and  the  daily 
laborer  to  buy  his  daily  bread.  If  they  cannot  obtain  money, 
their  business  must  stop  at  once. 

When  the  consumers  cease  to  be  employed  and  have  not  money, 
then  must  the  farmer  lose  his  market,  and  with  that  comes  a  gen 
eral  stagnation  of  legitimate  business,  and  ruin  follows  in  its 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAH.  293 

tram  everywhere,  since  no  business  can  be  carried  on  without 
money. 

In  such  a  state  of  things  hard  times  necessarily  ensue,  just 
such  times  as  are  felt  by  the  people  everywhere ;  felt  in  every 
business ;  felt  by  everybody  except  by  those  enemies  of  trade,  the 
usurers,  who  exact  an  exorbitant  interest,  just  in  proportion  as  it 
becomes  impossible  to  pay  money  at  all. 

The  next  question  which  presents  itself  is,  can  the  various 
classes  who  have  no  money,  relieve  themselves  by  applying  to 
these  brokers  or  usurers?  To  this  we  answer  most  positively, 
they  cannot.  There  is  no  business  in  prosperous  times  that  can 
be  honestly  carried  on  by  paying  twenty-five  per  cent,  on  the 
capital  invested. 

Nay,  ten  per  cent,  after  duly  requiting  the  laborer  and  not  im 
posing  on  the  consumer,  is  a  ruinous  tariff.  Indeed  six  per  cent, 
is  a  very  high  interest  in  any  legitimate  business.  If  the  busi 
ness  of  a  country  be  ruined,  the  laborer  will  go  where  he  can  find 
employment,  the  manufacturer  where  he  can  carry  on  his  busi 
ness  with  health  and  success ;  the  mechanic  where  the  increase 
of  population  demands  his  labor  and  skill,  or  in  other  words,  the 
whole  producing  power  of  the  State  removes  from  the  place 
where  the  channels  of  commerce  are  obstructed  by  usury,  to  where 
the  people  are  protected  by  laws  from  the  power  of  money  in  the 
hands  of  the  holders,  just  as  ships  or  vessels  leave  the  obstructed 
rivers  or  seas  where  pirates  roam  at  large,  for  seas  whose  waters 
are  unobstructed,  and  on  whose  waves  they  may  safely  sail  with 
out  hindrance. 

The  vast  emigration  from  the  country  cannot  fail  to  affect  the 
Southern  States  in  its  numerical  strength,  military  force,  and  pro 
ductive  capacity.  We  might  amplify  our  illustrations,  were  it 
necessary.  A  prostrate  State  with  languishing  business,  ruined 
trade,  and  a  population  who  are  offering  their  homesteads  for  sale, 
while  thousands  are  actually  abandoning  the  farms  on  which  they 
first  settled,  in  consequence  of  the  paralyzed  condition  of  every 
kind  of  business,  attest  the  truth  of  all  that  has  been  set  forth. 
The  specific  cause  will  be  carefully  examined  in  another  place. 

One  of  the  great  objections  to  all  usurious  contracts,  is  that  the 
parties  to  such  contracts  do  not  meet  upon  an  equality  as  in  the 
transaction  of  other  business. 


294  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAE. 

The  most  ready  method  of  determining  the  question  whether 
they  do  meet  upon  terms  of  equality,  is  to  consider  who  are  the 
borrowers  of  money. 

Who  are  the  borrowers  of  money  ?  Men  who,  if  they  had  the 
means,  would  gladly  pay  their  debts,  but  who  cannot  sell  their 
farms,  or  even  their  homesteads  for  money,  for  the  money  is  in 
the  hands  of  men  who  propose  to  use  it  only  as  an  instrument  of 
oppression  to  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor ;  men  who  choose  to 
buy  other  men's  farms  at  public  sale  at  a  discount  of  seventy- 
five  per  cent,  upon  the  recognized  market  value.  These  usurers 
having  by  mortgages  and 'in  other  ways  involved  a  very  large 
proportion  of  the  whole  people  in  their  meshes,  have  no  disposi 
tion  to  pay  a  fair  and  honest  value  for  property  when  they  can 
so  readily  sacrifice  it,  gain  possession  of  it,  hold  the  obligation 
of  their  victim  —  and  hold  him  a  slave  for  life ;  or  until  the  debt  is 
paid,  cause  him  to  be  annoyed  by  duns,  notices  and  executions 
through  usury,  long  after  the  original  debt  has  been  discharged. 
There  is  one  class  of  borrowers  who  would,  if  possible,  relieve 
themselves  from  the  toils  of  other  usurers,  but  in  doing  this,  find 
themselves  only  changing  their  oppressors, —  relentless  masters. 
Do  these  men  meet  as  equals  in  the  transactions  of  their  busi 
ness  ?  Is  not  the  borrower  in  duress  and  at  the  will  of  the  len 
der  ?  Indeed,  the  usurer  will  boastingly  say  of  his  victim :  "  It 
was  the  best  he  could  do ;  he  had  to  do  this  or  do  worse." 

Another  class  of  borrowers  are  suggested  in  this  connection  ; 
men  who  were  sufferers  in  a  general  calamity  —  who  were  des 
titute  in  a  wide-spread  famine ;  farmers  who  had  no  wheat  with 
which  to  seed  their  lands,  nor  money  left  to  buy  it.  These  men 
call  upon  brokers  to  borrow  money  to  buy  seed-grain  —  the  loan 
to  be  paid  after  harvest.  The  farmer  must  have  seed -wheat  or 
lose  his  summer's  work  and  thus  rob  his  family  of  their  bread ; 
and  the  broker,  knowing  the  necessity  of  the  farmer,  takes 
advantage  of  it  and  loans  him  money  at  the  very  highest  usury 
rates,  in  times  of  great  financial  distress. 

Were  the  parties  in  this  transaction  on  an  equality  as  contrac 
tors  ?  Was  there  no  power  of  the  oppressor  here  but  what  the 
oppressed  could  resist  ?  To  all  this  the  usurer,  with  unusual  bland- 
ness,  replies :  "  It  is  far  better  that  the  man  should  get  his 


CRIMES   OP   THE   CIVIL   WAK.  295 

grain  than  to  let  his  farm  be  idle  and  his  family  suffer  from  in 
creasing  want." 

All  this  may  be  true,  but  it  is  a  fearful  revelation  of  the  utter 
destitution  of  moral  principle  in  the  bosom  of  the  broker.  Like 
all  other  men  who  live  by  plunder,  he  limits  his  right  to  exact 
only  by  the  capacity  of  his  victim  to  endure.  He  would  sell 
him  as  a  slave,  or  take  his  life,  could  he  thus  secure  his  usury, 
but  for  the  interposition  of  the  law.  And  he  will  continue  to 
perpetrate  this  robbery  until  the  same  law  which  protects  his 
liberty  and  his  life,  interferes  to  protect  his  property. 

But  among  other  borrowers,  are  men  thrown  out  of  employ 
ment  who  are  unable  to  earn  their  daily  bread.  The  money- 
holder  will  not  bring  under  cultivation  his  wild  land  to  give 
employment  to  the  laborer.  That  would  take  money.  He  will 
not  build  houses,  for  that  would  reduce  his  capital.  He  will  do 
nothing  that  employs  labor  for  himself,  or  that  will  employ  his 
money  in  legitimate  trade  or  divert  it  from  the  channels  of 
usury ;  nor  can  any  one  else  borrow  it  at  these  ruinous  rates,  to 
engage  in  any  legitimate  business  which  would  give  employment 
to  laborers,  artists  or  mechanics.  To  carry  on  a  business  under 
such  circumstances,  would  be  ruinous  in  the  extreme.  The  re 
sult  is,  the  laboring  man  remains  idle ;  his  family  must  suffer 
from  pinching  want,  and  to  get  his  daily  bread,  he  must  mort 
gage  his  homestead  or  jstarve,  beg,  or  steal.  He  has  no  other 
alternative. 

Again,  the  usurer  who  is  "the  mildest-mannered  man  that 
ever  scuttled  ship  or  cut  a  throat,"  will  loan  him  money  to  buy 
his  bread  with  real-estate  for  security,  and  with  the  most  perfect 
sangfroid  say,  "I  pity  the  poor  fellow;  it  was  the  very  best 
thing  that  he  could  do  —  and  I  accommodated  him." 

Are  the  parties  to  the  contract  equal  here?  Is  the  borrower 
on  a  level  with  the  lender  ?  And  how  else  than  by  a  strict  and 
penal  usury,  can  the  evil  apparent  be  arrested  ?  Whether  is  it 
better  for  the  State  to  protect  the  industrious,  who  produce 
everything,  from  want  or  crime,  or  to  protect  usurers  who  pro 
duce  nothing,  in  the  commission  of  the  greatest  crime  known  to 
political  economy,  the  prostration  of  legitimate  business,  des 
truction  of  the  means  of  an  honest  subsistence  —  the  poor  pit 
tance  left  to  the  laboring  classes. 


29 6  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

There  is  another  class  of  borrowers  who,  it  is  thought,  ought 
to  be  more  heavily  taxed ;  they  are  men  to  loan  to  whom  it  is 
dangerous,  and  because  it  is  a  great  risk  to  loan  to  them,  we  are 
told  "  that  to  exact  usury  of  them,  is  right." 

The  true  theory  in  this  class  of  loans  is  this :  The  whole  is 
a  species  of  gambling  which  would  not  exist  but  for  the  extor 
tion  of  usury  tolerated  by  law.  All  civilized  nations  legislate 
against  gambling,  betting  upon  elections,  the  sale  of  lottery 
tickets,  and  all  other  gaming.  Why,  then,  should  we  legislate 
against  all  bets  or  risks  at  stakes  of  money,  and  refuse  to  sup 
press  usury  —  the  only  argument  for  which  is,  that  it  may,  when 
duly  used,  earn  money  from  reckless  speculators.  If  there  were 
no  other  argument  for  the  passage  of  usury  laws,  this  one  would 
be  sufficient. 

Usury  is  made  a  pretext  for  reckless  speculation  and  public 
gambling.  It  is  frequently  urged  that  speculators  borrow  money, 
and  are  under  obligation  to  pay  usury,  and  the  money  loaner 
has  a  right  to  exact  usury  of  him,  because  he  is  a  speculator. 
The  argument  is  badly  founded, —  for  if  usury  be  given  by 
speculators,  borrowers  to  pay  debts  will  certainly  not  be  able  to 
get  money  at  less  rates,  and,  as  a  consequence,  what  is  defended 
as  a  just  punishment  to  adventurers,  is  only  a  badly-conceived 
defence  of  stock  or  other  gambling,  which  falls  with  its  full  force 
upon  the  whole  country,  and  most  severely  upon  the  productive 
class,  beyond  whose  reach  money  is  always  placed  in  times  of 
general  distress. 

This  very  borrowing  of  money  by  speculators  at  ruinous  rates, 
makes  money  so  scarce  at  a  fair  commercial  interest  —  diverting 
it  from  its  legitimate  purposes,  so  as  to  make  it  impossible  that 
debtors  can  borrow  it  to  pay  their  legitimate  debts. 

The  business  of  the  country  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  must 
be  carried  on  by  the  laborer  of  the  operatives,  and  the  net  profits 
must  be  distributed  among  the  capitalists,  the  conductors  of  the 
manufactory  and  the  daily  laborer.  If  enormous  profits  are 
made,  the  consumer  must  pay  them.  But  competition  in  a  very 
short  time,  usually  regulates  any  serious  evil  which  may  arise 
from  this  cause,  and  nothing  which  is  generally  recognized  as  an 
article  of  commerce  or  trade,  or  which  may  be  increased  by  the 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  297 

option  of  public  industry,  can  long  remain  the  subject  matter  of 
monopoly. 

But,  in  the  division  of  the  net  profits,  the  first  claim  that  will 
be  met  is  that  of  the  capitalists,  which  is  always  secured  by 
mortgage  deeds  of  trusts,  voluntary  confessions  of  judgment, 
personal  or  collateral  securities  of  such  character  as  makes  the 
interest  of  the  capitalist  not  only  secure,  but  convertible  into  cash 
at  pleasure,  unless  it  be  in  times  of  extraordinary  pressure  The 
capitalist  is  well  secured  in  his  investment,  when  the  nominal 
owner  who  has  the  remaining  control  of  the  effects  and  assets 
will,  of  course,  secure  to  himself  a  lion's  share  of  the  net  profits, 
and,  as  in  every  other  contest  between  labor  and  capital,  labor 
has  to  yield  an  obedient  neck  to  the  yoke  capital  places  upon 
her  by  the  unfair  legislation  of  the  country.  The  operative  has 
only  one  or  other  of  these  alternatives.  He  must  either  take 
the  pittance  which  may  be  left  after  the  division  of  the  profits 
between  the  capitalist  and  the  controller  of  his  capital,  or  be 
driven  from  an  honest  employment  to  the  destitute  home  of  a 
hungry  family  who  are  dependent  on  his  labor. 

Now,  what  in  honesty  and  justice  should  be  done  to  a  fair  dis 
tribution  of  the  profits  of  the  manufactory  ?  Should  not  the 
laborer  be  first  rewarded  for  his  work;  next  the  chief  operator 
who  takes  supervision  of  the  establishment ;  and  then,  if  anything 
be  left,  let  it  be  given  to  the  capital  which  neither  toils  nor  spins. 
If  capital  refuses  to  contribute  by  its  aid  to  the  general  work 
because  it  cannot  enslave  the  laborer,  then  ought  restrictions  to 
be  duly  thrown  around  it  to  prevent  money  which  was  made  for 
the  public  use  from  becoming  an  instrument  of  public  oppres 
sion  ?  This  is  thought  to  be  an  unanswerable  argument  against 
the  enactment  of  all  usury  laws. 

BOTH  PARTIES  CONSENT  TO  THE  USURIOUS  BARGAIN. 

This  would  be  no  argument  worthy  of  weight,  even  if  it  were 
true.  That  two  criminals  consent  to  a  wrong  in  which  one  is  a 
sufferer,  is  not  a  valid  consent  for  the  very  highest  of  reasons, 
that  the  public  good  is  involved  and  the  public  Government  is 
interested  in  the  protection  of  all  her  citizens  in  life,  liberty  and 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL  WAK. 

property.  For  this  reason  homestead  exemption  laws  have  been 
passed,  not  merely  for  the  specific  protection  of  an  individual, 
but  for  the  protection  of  society  itself  against  the  aggressions  of 
greedy  and  unscrupulous  men  who  would  utterly  impoverish 
their  fellow  men  only,  that  they  may  send  them  as  mendicants  to 
be  supported  at  public  expense. 

For  the  same  cause,  also,  laws  are  made  against  all  crime,  that 
the  public  may  thereby  be  protected  against  bankruptcy  and  the 
people  from  pauperism. 

Adultery  certainly  is  a  crime,  though  both  parties  consent  to 
its  commission.  And  the  law  makes  it  punishable  for  the  reason 
that  society  becomes  the  sufferer,  since  it  has  to  make  provision 
for  the  support  of  bastard  children,  for  which  pure  citizens  are 
taxed.  Society  has  a  higher  claim  in  the  vindication  of  her  own 
character  from  scandal,  which,  if  permitted,  would  degrade  the 
morals  and  utterly  bankrupt  the  public.  It  is  of  very  little 
consequence  that  two  criminals  conspire  against  the  peace,  order 
and  dignity  of  the  State,  and  plead  in  justification  of  their  guilt 
that  they  both  consented,  since  it  is  their  very  consent  that  con 
stitutes  the  essence  or.  animus  of  their  crime. 

So  gambling  of  every  kind  is  done  by  the  consent  of  both 
parties.  But  here,  very  properly,  the  law  interferes  to  arrest  the 
crime  and  punish  it;  for  society  itself  is  invaded,  since  in  every 
instance  of  gain  by  one  party  and  loss  by  the  other,  the  relative 
ability  of  the  loser  to  provide  for  himself  and  family  is  injured  if 
not  destroyed,  and  the  chance  that  he  will  become  a  public  charge 
is  greatly  augmented.  What  would  a  community  of  gamblers 
be  but  a  community  of  paupers,  sooner  or  later,  to  be  supported 
by  the  public  wealth  drawn  from  the  sweat  of  the  faces  of  the 
producing  or  laboring  classes  ?  But  does  this  consent  make  the 
matter  less  a  crime  against  the  peace  and  honor  of  society  ?  or 
that  even  a  majority  agree  to  corrupt  the  fountains  of  morals, 
and  grind  with  taxes  the  only  men  who  contribute  to  its  real 
wealth,  does  this  make  the  injury  less? 

In  this  case  as  in  all  others,  it  is  the  consent  which  constitutes 
the  crime,  and  makes  its  less  equivocal  and  more  dangerous,  be 
cause  more  powerful. 

Duelling  is  done  by  consent  of  both  parties.     The  mere  consent 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAl£  299 

of  two  men  to  commit  a  murder,  is  not  a  good  reason  for  the 
permission  of  the  crime,  when  the  very  essence  of  murder  is  that 
it  was  done  premeditatedly. 

Society  does  not  choose  to  grant  an  immunity  to  men  who  cast 
a  fearful  gloom  upon  her  destiny,  and  have  nothing  to  offer  in 
palliation  of  their  crimes,  except  impudent  defiance  of  all  law 
and  audacious  contempt  for  the  rights  of  peaceable  communities. 
Usury  is  done  by  the  consent  of  both  parties.  But  is  that  a 
reason  why  men  should  commit  a  great  wrong  on  society,  ob 
structing  the  business,  labor  and  commerce  of  the  country  by 
gambling  in  the  currency  ?  The  consent  of  the  parties  only  ag 
gravates  the  crime  of  voluntarily  disregarding  the  majesty  of  the 
law. 

We  will  now  examine  the  question —  Who  are  the  parties 
consenting?  Are  they  the  same  as  the  parties  really  interested 
in  the  illegal  transaction  ?  They  are  not.  The  country  is  the 
first  and  a  paramount  party  in  all  transactions  affecting  her  own 
honor.  The  first  great  duty,  and  obligation,  and  debt  due  from 
every  citizen  is  to  the  State,  and  without  a  proper  regard  to  this 
obligation,  there  can  be  no  law,  no  country,  no  society,  no  order? 
no  security.  Has  the  State  given  her  consent  to  any  of  the  crimes 
to  which  we  have  alluded  ?  Has  she  not  prohibited  them  by 
positive  law  ?  And  can  any  man  be  said  to  give  his  consent  to 
a  transaction  which,  as  a  law-abiding  citizen,  he  has  bound  him 
self  not  to  do  ?  The  country  has  not  consented  to  the  crime  of 
usury,  and  the  laws  of  all  civilized  nations  prohibit  it.  Every 
man's  creditor,  and  his  creditor  and  family,  are  bona  fide  parties 
to  every  transaction  which  in  any  wise  may  affect  his  property  and 
its  products  until  their  debts  are  liquidated.  But  do  the  creditors 
of  men,  as  parties  to  the  transactions  of  usury,  give  their  consent 
to  the  payment  of  usury  to  others,  while  the  principal  part  of 
their  honest  debts  remains  unpaid  ?  Surely  such  consent  not,  to 
anything  connected  with  the  crime  of  usury.  But  the  Almighty 
just,  wise,  and  good  Creator,  has  made  other  parties  to 
nearly  every  transaction  of  this  kind.  By  His  wise  providence, 
it  is  the  imperious  duty  of  all  men  to  support  their  parents  in 
old  age,  to  maintain  their  children  in  helpless  infancy,  to  protect 
and  defend,  to  educate  and  enlighten  them,  to  justly  share  their 


300  CEIMES   OF   THE  CIVIL   WAR. 

earnings  and  their  interests  with  their  wives ;  and  all  of  these 
parties  have  an  indefeasible  interest  in  the  moral  character  and 
good  name  of  the  child,  the  father,  the  husband ;  therefore,  the 
crimes  of  usury,  duelling,  gambling,  adultery,  are  held  by  the 
general  consent  of  these  intensely  interested  parties,  as  detestable 
crimes.  Who,  then,  are  the  parties  in  usurious  contracts  ?  They 
are  the  State,  the  creditors  and  the  families  of  the  victims  of  usury. 
But  these  parties  never  give  their  consent,  and  consequently,  the 
argument  of  consent  between  the  parties  in  usury  falls  to  the 
ground.  Even  if  they  did  give  their  consent,  that  fact  would 
be  of  no  force,  since  no  law  can  exonerate  criminals  from  guilt, 
simply  because  they  consented  to  commit  crime. 

CONSIDERATION    OF   THE    CHARACTER    OF    THE   BORROWERS  — 
MEN   WHO   ARE    FORCED   TO    PAY    USURY. 

The  great  body  of  borrowers  are  already  debtors ;  men  who 
are  the  victims  of  a  general  calamity,  a  financial  crisis  which  is 
brought  about  by  financial  gambling,  and  at  the  will  of  the  bro 
kers,  bankers,  capitalists;  other  men  who  always  have  the  law  of 
the  country  male  to  their  order;  or  who,  if  the  laws  are  not  in  con 
formity  with  their  purposes,  through  the  power  of  money,  bid 
defiance  to  all  law,  as  they  have  in  their  very  business  stifled  all 
conviction  of  the  right  of  other  men  and   retributive  justice. 
Once  the  victim  of  such  a  crisis,  honest  poor  men,  who  scorn  to 
assign  their  property  or  make  a  fraudulent  conveyance,  borrow 
money  to  pay  their  honest  debts.     But  in  their  refusal  to  borrow 
money,  and  in  their  determination  to  do  right,  they  fall  victims 
to  m.3n  who  despise  right,  and  who  under  the  cover  of  law,  commit 
every  outrage  upon  the  rights  of  property  and  human  nature. 

But  if  the  creditor  be  dishonest,  then  comes  premature  assign 
ments,  delays  in  the  payment  of  debts,  and  general  failures 
that  are  felt  through  the  avenues  of  business  and  trade ;  or 
fraudulent  conveyances,  or  surreptitious  business  transactions 
that  demoralize  society  at  its  foundation. 

If  there  were  no  other  reasons  for  the  enactment  of  the  usury 
laws  than  the  protection  of  men  who  become  victims  of  this  ne 
cessity,  that  would  of  itself  be  sufficient  to  carry  out  the  great 


CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  301 

first  purpose  of  government  in  the  protection  of  the  weak  from 
the  aggressions  of  the  strong.  Such  borrowers  are  involuntary. 

The  second  class  of  borrowers  —  business  men,  upon  whose 
success  the  employment  and  subsistence  of  the  poorer  classes  are 
dependent.  A  system  of  heavy  interest,  or  usury,  either  drives 
them  out  of  business  and  crushes  out  the  laborers  employed  by 
them, — or  if  they  continue  in  business,  paying  usury,  they  are 
overwhelmed  in  a  hopeless  bankruptcy  sooner  or  later :  the 
sooner  the  better. 

The  third  class  of  borrowers  are  speculators  or  sub-brokers, 
who  take  special  contracts  of  hunting  up  men  in  distress,  and 
do  a  more  base,  heartless,  grinding  business  in  a  lower  way  than 
their  principals.  Still,  Mr.  Say  and  Rev.  Dr.  Wayland  speak  of 
"  supply  and  demand  as  regulating  the  whole  matter,  and  that 
injustice  is  done  to  no  one."  But  what  are  the  facts  ? 

These  borrowers  increase  the  rate  of  interest  and  increase  the 
demand  for  money,  and  with  that  increase,  the  oppression  of  the 
debtor  by  the  creditor  ;  and  just  as  in  every  other  case,  the  hard 
ship  falls  with  crushing  weight  upon  the  helpless  and  unpro 
tected.  Indeed,  the  price  paid  by  the  usurer  for  money  to  com 
mit  usury  with,  places  money  for  the  time  being  out  of  the  reach 
of  the  oppressed  debtor,  and  makes  it  impossible  to  carry  on  his 
legitimate  business,  and  destroys  the  vitality  of  commerce  and 
business  of  every  kind; — nor  is  there  any  greater  fallacy  than 
that  the  speculator  has  to  pay  the  usury  ?  The  speculator  makes 
the  poor  man  pay  it  in  his  advanced  prices,  on  what  he  sells,  but 
more  generally  the  whole  have  to  suffer  together; — the  loaner, 
the  speculator  and  the  thousands  who  deal  with  them,  are  all  in 
volved  in  a  general  bankruptcy.  The  other  side  of  usury  is  j  ust 
about  as  fairly  presented  by  giving 

THE   CHARACTER    OF    USURY   AS    DEVELOPED   IN   HIS    HABITS 
OF   CONDUCTING   HIS   BUSINESS. 

All  his  business  is  done  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  law,  in  viola 
tion  of  the  peace,  policy  and  statute  of  the  State.  A  good  man 
.may,  in  the  moment  of  excitement,  commit  an  act  of  indiscre 
tion  and  violate  a  law,  but  he  will  always  hasten  to  repair  it. 


302  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

But  the  usurer  violates  the  laws  of  the  country  in  every  single 
transaction  of  his  trade,  and  his  office  sets  precisely  the  same 
example  of  obedience  to  the  public  law  as  does  the  saloon  of  the 
professional  gambler  to  whose  vocation  it  is  so  nearly  allied  ;  or 
as  does  the  keeper  of  the  grog-shop,  who,  like  himself,  prospers 
only  as  his  customers  sink  to  ruin. 

Every  transaction  of  the  broker's  shop  is  a  falsehood,  and  car 
ries  a  deceit  upon  its  face.  His  papers  assert  a  lie  in  the  amount 
borrowed ;  they  cover  up  a  truth  in  the  amount  falsely  wrung 
from  his  victim.  When  they  sue  in  the  Courts  of  Chancery, 
they  institute  their  suits  by  perjury,  and  make  the  courts  of  jus 
tice  subservient  to  their  crime.  They  don't  pretend  to  collect 
their  debts  by  the  ordinary  method.  Every  debt  in  default  is  a 
suit  in  court.  Every  misfortune  which  may  disable  their  victim 
from  prompt  payment,  is  followed  by  an  execution. 

What  is  now  the  condition  of  the  country  ?  What  is  it  that 
fills  every  advertisement  column  of  the  newspapers  ?  The  sheriff's 
sales-list:  the  executed  property  of  victims  of  brokers'  shops. 
What  business  chiefly  engages  the  courts  that  are  now  busy  be 
yond  all  precedent  ?  The  answer  is,  to  collect  usurious  debts. 

The  usurer  only  loans  to  men  in  necessity :  other  men  avoid 
him,  as  they  dread  the  pestilential  breath  of  bankruptcy; 
robbery  and  ruin.  He  loans  to  the  unfortunate  for  the  obvious 
reason,  that  other  men  could  save  themselves  from  his  deadly 
grasp. 

Upon  the  other  hand,  the  usurer  could  hope  for  nothing  but 
in  the  necessity  and  ignorance  of  the  unfortunate,  which  are  his 
great  staple  in  trade.  Like  a  sea- vulture  that  scents  the  foe  ted 
breath  of  the  dying  sailor,  and  follows  the  vessel  until  his  body 
has  been  cast  into  its  watery  tomb,  only  to  be  devoured  by  the 
hungry  monster,  so  the  usurer  instinctively  learns  the  unhealthy 
condition  of  the  community,  and  follows  his  devoted  victim  until 
the  last  hope  of  recovery  has  passed  away,  only  to  consume  his 
substance  and  devour  his  property. 

He  is  unmoved,  though  living  by  the  violation  of  all  law  and 
trampling  upon  all  justice.  He  has  no  sympathy  with  any  one. 
He  lives  upon  the  necessities  of  men.  He  would  save  a  drown 
ing  man  if  he  could  fix  a  paying  price,  or  drive  a  good  bargain 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  303 

with  the  man  before  he  sunk.  Such  is  the  usurer  and  such  are 
the  men  upon  whom  he  preys.  And  it  is  but  an  act  of  justice  to 
him  to  say  that  he  is  sometimes  a  worshipper  in  the  temple  of 
God. 

But  this  is  only  the  finishing  stroke  of  a  deceit  which  scruples 
not  to  approach  the  Deity  and  invite  him  to  become  a  particeps 
criminis  in  a  hypocricy  which  invades  the  very  holy  of  holies 
of  heaven  itself.  He,  too,  is  found  giving  alms  in  public,  just 
as  incendiaries  hastening  to  accomplish  the  destruction  of  their 
victims  by  the  knife,  poison  the  food  that  there  may  be  no  escape. 
So  this  venal  creature  of  corruption  assails  the  altar  of  sacrifice, 
and  with  his  filthy  lucre,  attempts  to  poison  the  watchmen  upon 
the  outer  walls  of  the  Temple  of  Truth,  that  he  might  thrust 
his  hidden  poignard  to  the  heart  of  Christianity,  and  over  its 
mangled  remains  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor,  until  by  common 
consent,  robbery  is  made  reputable  in  the  Church  of  God. 

THE  JEWISH  LAW  ON  USURY. 

The  Jewish  law  forbade  all  interest,  usury  or  increase  what 
ever,  either  upon  money,  grain,  any  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  or 
any  other  commodity. 

This  great  principle  had  its  foundation  in  the  true  philosophy 
of  all  equal  and  just  government,  that  every  man  shall  pro 
duce  an  amount  equal  at  least  to  what  he  consumes. 

The  settled  maxim  of  Jewish  law  was  this :  "  He  that  does 
not  work,  shall  not  eat."  This  maxim  was  just  and  right.  It 
guaranteed  to  the  people  at  large  equality,  and  to  every  man 
justice.  Every  one  lived  upon  his  labor.  No  man  lived  upon 
his  capital  in  his  money,  by  taking  usury  of  his  brother. 

His  only  hope  of  success  in  business  was  based  upon  carefully 
husbanding  and  appropriating  his  means  to  such  useful  purposes 
in  agriculture  and  the  arts,  &c.,  as  gave  him  due  compensation 
for  his  labor  and  ingenuity. 

The  Jewish  law  was  founded  upon  this  great  pillar  of  eternal 
justice :  "  Whatever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto  you, 
even  do  ye  unto  them."  Such  a  law  could  not  well  tolerate  such 
a  system  as  usury,  which  makes  labor  entirely  subservient  to 


304  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

capital,  and  subsidizes  industry  for  the  benefit  and  support  of 
idleness  and  crime. 

The  language  of  the  law  is  alike  explicit,  clear,  and  in  exact 
harmony  with  the  true  spirit  of  justice  and  benevolence  which 
was  breathed  through  the  whole  Jewish  system.  "  If  thou  lend 
money  to  any  of  my  people  that  is  poor  by  thee,  thou  shalt  not 
be  to  him  as  an  usurer,  neither  shalt  thou  lay  upon  him  usury. 
If  thou  at  all  take  thy  neighbor's  raiment  to  pledge,  thou  shalt 
deliver  it  unto  him  by  that  the  sun  goeth  down." — Exodus,  22d 
chapter,  25th  and  26th  verses. 

"  If  thy  brother  be  waxen  poor  and  fallen  into  decay  with 
thee,  then  thou  shalt  relieve  him.  Yea,  though  he  be  a  stran 
ger  or  a  sojourner,  that  he  may  live  with  thee,  take  thou  no  usury 
of  him  or  increase,  but  fear  thy  God,  that  thy  brother  may  live 
with  thee.  Thou  shalt  not  give  him  thy  money  upon  usury, 
nor  lend  him  thy  victuals  for  increase." — Lev.  15th  chap.,  S5-37 
verses. 

"  Thou  shalt  not  lend  upon  usury  to  thy  brother,  upon  usury 
of  money,  usury  of  victuals,  usury  of  anything  which  is  lent 
upon  usury.  Unto  a  stranger  thou  mayst  lend  upon  usury,  but 
unto  thy  brother  thou  shalt  not  lend  upon  usury,  that  the  Lord 
thy  God  may  bless  thee  in  all  that  thou  settest  thine  hand  to,  in 
the  land  whither  thou  goest  to  possess  it." 

The  Jewish  people  were  for  the  most  part  engaged  in  agricul 
tural  pursuits ;  and  by  the  law  every  man  had  his  allotted  posi 
tion.  It  was  the  purpose  of  the  law  to  suffer  no  man  to  be  idle, 
to  foster  no  idleness,  to  engender  no  crime ;  for  idleness  begets 
crime,  and  is  inseparable  from  it.  The  equality  of  her  people 
was  the  glory  of  her  government,  and  the  bulwark  of  her  strength. 
This  equality  could  only  be  maintained  in  the  spirit  of  justice, 
by  allotting  to  every  man  the  fruits  of  his  own  labor,  and  allow 
ing  no  man  to  live  upon  the  labor  of  others,  and  appropriating 
the  surplus,  whatever  it  might  be,  of  the  aggregate  labor  of  the 
whole  people,  to  the  support  of  the  infirm  and  unfortunate. 
But  where  every  man  labors,  there  would  be  but  few  infirm; 
where  there  was  no  speculation,  there  were  scarcely  any  unfortu 
nate  in  business.  The  policy  of  the  Jews  was  to  allow  to  each 
other  in  dealing  or  loaning  money  no  increase  or  usury, 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL.  WAR.  305 

which  was  with  them  convertible  terms,  for  the  reasons  indica 
ted  in  the  foregoing.  Indeed,  there  was  a  still  higher  rule,  the 
great  principle  upon  which  the  whole  Jewish  law  is  founded. 
"  To  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  This  law  could  never  be 
carried  out,  either  in  the  letter  or  in  the  spirit,  where  usury  in 
any  sense  had  the  countenance  of  law,  or  the  sanction  of  public 
sentiment. 

But  the  Jews  did  loan  on  usury  to  neighboring  nations,  which, 
though  no  better  in  morals,  was  a  very  adroit  stroke  in  political 
economy.  By  sending  their  money  abroad  to  labor  they  could 
ruin  the  Canaanites  and  soon  gain  all  of  their  property,  which  in 
a  very  short  time,  by  very  moderate  rates  of  interest,  would  ex 
haust  the  principal  in  usury  and  leave  those  nations  bankrupt. 

Capital  invited  into  the  State  to  make  us  rich  on  such  a 
disinterested  errand,  could  not  be  expected  to  come  unblessed 
with  the  kind  wishes  and  benediction  of  that  most  benevolent 
and  charitable  class  of  public  benefactors — the  usurer.  With 
the  invitation  of  the  law  and  the  gospel,  the  legislator  and  the 
minister,  with  the  approving  smile  of  the  Christian,  and  the 
constituent,  the  philanthropic  broker  from  the  far-off  East,  went 
to  work  to  make  money  for  the  Western  people  after  this  wise. 
He  bought  up  depreciated  and  worthless  railroad  bonds,  and 
other  equally  valuable  stocks,  upon  which  brokers,  gamblers,  or 
blacklegs  play  poker  on  stakes  of  counterfeit  money.  This  they 
called  a  basis  of  banking.  They  bought  beautiful  fine  paper, 
and  drew  pictures  of  superannuated  politicians  upon  it,  and 
called  it  money.  This  MONEY  was  sent  to  ACCOMMODATE  the 
people.  There  were  a  million  of  dollars  sent  to  assist  in  im 
proving  the  country,  at  the  moderate  rate  of  twenty-five  per 
centum  per  annum.  These  millions  of  dollars  were  loaned  on 
very  reasonable  security.  They  only  asked  of  the  people  two 
or  three  endorsers  beside  the  borrower  ;  and  only  about  five 
times  the  amount  mortgaged,  and  then  gave  them  at  least 
three  weeks  beyond  the  maturity  of  their  deed  of  trust,  to  raise 
the  money ;  and  then  if  the  money  was  not  raised,  they  would 
only  buy  in  the  property  for  at  least  half  the  amount  of  the  debt 
and  wait  for  the  balance  until  the  debtor  could  earn  it.  Their 
million  of  Eastern  capital  which  came  to  labor  for  four  years 
20 


306  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

found  already  a  million  of  circulating  medium.  But  neither 
their  million  nor  our  million,  begat  another  dollar  at  the  end  of 
the  four  years.  The  interest  of  their  million  at  twenty-five  per 
cent.,  \vas  just  another  million,  so  their  million  having  done  its 
errand  very  gracefully,  bowed  to  the  people,  taking  the  other 
million  to  pay  the  usury,  leaving  us  without  a  currency  of  any 
kind.  Then  steps  in  another  equally  friendly  class  of  public 
benefactors,  to  sell  the  mortgaged  property  of  the  country — all 
simply  because  usury  lowered  the  rates  of  interest.  Never  was 
sagacity  more  highly  honored  than  that  of  the  Jews,  who  would 
suffer  no  increase  to  be  taken  of  each  other ;  for  thereby  they 
prevented  general  poverty  and  consequent  crime.  Nor  was  ever 
ruin  to  a  neighboring  nation  more  certainly  effected  than  in  the 
exactions  of  usury  by  the  Jews,  in  their  loaning  of  money  to  the 
Canaanites.  And  after  the  improvement  in  arts  and  science  for 
many  centuries,  and  the  regulations  of  Jewish  law  in  political 
economy,  there  can  be  offered  no  amendment  which  will  command 
the  approving  judgment  of  future  ages,  or  which  will  not  be 
ultimately  discarded  by  statesmen,  as  a  ruinous  innovation  of 
reckless  adventurers  in  the  science  of  government. 

The  wrongs  endured  by  labor  at  the  hands  of  capital,  cannot 
be  more  graphically  pictured  than  has  been  done  by  the  hand  of 
desolation  at  the  present  time.  Behold  thousands  of  field-hands 
who  have  spent  the  past  summer  in  raising  millions  of  bushels 
of  grain  with  their  own  hands,  on  soil  given  to  mankind  in 
common  by  the  Almighty,  when  winter  comes,  are  refused 
enough  of  bread  to  sustain  them,  and  can  find  no  employment 
by  which  to  secure  money  enough  to  purchase  the  necessaries  of 
life,  to  save  their  families  from  famine,  and  are  compelled  to  pay 
usury  on  money,  and  mortgage  their  homesteads  to  secure  the 
payment,  as  the  mild  alternative !  Is  not  this  a  fearful  com 
mentary  upon  the  justice  of  the  world,  that  from  the  cradle  to 
the  grave,  the  poor,  who  produce  the  wealth  of  the  country,  are 
to  a  great  extent,  denied  the  luxuries,  the  comforts,  and  almost 
the  essentials  of  living,  while  the  rich  revel  in  the  excesses  of 
the  products  of  the  labor  of  the  poor  ?  It  is  in  the  contract  of 
the  organization  of  society,  that  justice  shall  be  done  to  each, 
and  protection  shall  be  afforded  to  all.  But  without  usury  Jaws 


CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAB.  307 

this  cannot  be  done.  The  difference  of  the  power  of  money 
over  every  other  article  of  trade,  is  almost  as  great  as  that  of 
capital  over  labor.  Every  other  kind  of  property  is  taxed  np 
to  its  full  value,  and  is  made  to  bear  more  than  its  share  of  the 
expenses  in  the  wars  and  improvements  of  the  country,  while 
under  no  circumstances  can  it  yield  the  profits  of  money,  even 
at  6  per  cent,  per  annum. 

THE   EFFECTS    OF    USURY    ON    TRADE. 

The  real  character  of  usury,  and  its  effects  upon  trade,  are 
concisely  and  powerfully  presented  in  the  statute  of  Anne, 
enacted  in  1714  : 

"  Whereas  the  reducing  of  interest  to  ten,  and  from  thence  to 
eight,  and  thence  to  six  in  the  hundred,  has,  by  experience,  been 
found  very  beneficial  to  trade,  and  improvement  of  lands ;  and 
whereas  the  heavy  burden  of  the  late  long  and  expensive  war 
hath  been  chiefly  borne  by  the  owners  of  the  land  of  this  king 
dom,  by  reason  whereof  they  have  been  necessitated  to  contract 
very  large  debts,  and  thereby,  and  by  the  abatement  in  the  value 
of  their  lands,  are  become  greatly  impoverished ;  and  whereas, 
by  reason  of  the  great  interest  and  profit  of  money  made  at 
home,  the  foreign  trade  has  been  neglected,"  &c. 

This  statute  has  been  vindicated  by  the  judgment,  wisdom,  and 
experience  of  the  British  government,  for  nearly  a  century  and 
a  half,  and  the  reasons  are  as  good  to-day  as  they  were  then,  and 
are  as  true  in  America  as  they  are  in  Europe. 

That  no  injustice  may  be  done  to  any  one,  it  may  be  suggested 
that  no  other  capital  than  money,  though  productive  and  gener 
ative,  can  make  such  vast  profits  as  money  loaned  at  6  per  cent, 
interest.  Though  money  is  really  unproductive,  and  yields  no 
thing;  yet  it  is  like  the  spade  or  the  plough,  which  does  no 
thing  excepting  only  as  it  is  directed  by  the  hand  of  the  laborer. 

This  accompanying  statement  shows  how  impossible  it  is  to 
pay  usury,  although  it  may  be  contracted,  and  the  impossibility 
to  pay  it,  is  a  conclusive  reason  why  usury  should  not  be  tolera 
ted  as  a  matter  of  civil  contract. 

An  eminent  statistician  of  Boston  has  taken  the  pains  to  show 
what  would  be  the  effect  of  different  rates  of  interest  upon  money 


308  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

in  Massachusetts,  for  a  term  of  40  years,  a  period  proportioned 
to  the  being  of  a  State.     He  takes : 

Loans  and  discounts  of  Banks  in  Massachusetts, 

Dec.  4,  1854 $93,000,000 

Interest  thereon,  40  years  —  interest  taken  in  ad 
vance  every  six  months,  and  added  to  principal, 

at  6  per  cent,  per  annum 1,063,455,000 

do.         do.          at  7  per  cent  per  annum,  1,607,970,000 


Difference  between  6  and  7  per  cent.  40  years...    $544,515,000 

Nearly  the  valuation  of  the  whole  State  of  Mas 
sachusetts  in  1850,  which  was. $508,000,634 

Interest  on  $93,000,000,  40  years,  at  8  per  cent.  2,436,600,000 
do.         do.         do.  at  6  per  cent 1,063,455,000 

Difference  between   6  and  8  per  cent.  40  years... $1,373,145,000 
Valuation  of  Massachusetts  deducted 598,000,634 

Difference  between  6  and  8  per  cent.  40  years  — 

more  than  value  of  Mass,  in  1850 $775,144,366 

THE  GEEAT   OUTEAGE  PEEPETEATED  IN  ALLOWING  BANKS   TO 

TAKE  USUEY. 

It  is  true  that  we  have  a  usury  law  for  banks  as  well  as  for 
individuals.  They  have  the  right  to  issue  notes  far  beyond  their 
present  capacity  to  redeem.  But  if  individuals  are  suffered  by 
law  to  take  twenty-five  or  thirty-six  per  cent,  usury,  why  not 
grant  to  banks  the  same  privilege?  They,  however,  do  take 
this  privilege.  In  the  loan  of  $1,000  for  thirty  days,  the  nomi 
nal  interest  is  ten  per  cent.  But  gentlemen  like  these  are  not  to 
be  outwitted,  for  after  taking  out  the  interest  of  the  note,  and 
thus  paying  ten  per  cent,  on  money  never  received,  the  borrower 
has  to  take  money  on  N.  York  at  1^  per  ct.  discount,  or  more,  as  the 
case  may  be,  and  when  he  has  paid  the  exchange  and  interest,  he 
finds  the  amount  is  at  least  twenty-five  per  cent,  per  annum; 
thus  making  three  dollars  for  every  dollar  of  capital  nominally 
invested. 


CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR.  309 

This  precious  privilege  of  loaning  credit,  or  promises  to  pay, 
is  peculiar  to  chartered  institutions.  But  they  receive  their  power 
to  make  money  from  the  law,  and  after  hiding  under  its  shelter 
and  receiving  its  protection,  these  gentlemen  of  the  banks  will 
complain  that  it  is  a  great  wrong  done  them  that  they  are  not 
allowed  by  law  to  loan  at  any  rate  in  their  discretion,  and  it  is 
very  difficult  to  give  any  good  reason  why  banks  should  not 
take  usury  just  as  other  persons  do. 

But  the  whole  is  evidence  conclusive  of  the  destructive  policy 
of  allowing  either  banks  or  individuals  to  obstruct  the  business 
of  the  country  in  that  way. 

ON  THE  SCARCITY  OF  MONEY. 

Another  of  the  fallacies  which  deludes  the  public  mind,  but 
which  has  no  support  in  either  experience  or  common  sense,  is 
that  the  interest  of  money  ought  to  be  high  or  low  as  money  is 
scarce  or  plenty.  If  it  be  true  that  money  is  scarce,  its  scarcity 
is  only  relative,  and  is  in  proportion  to  the  debts  which  are  to 
be  paid  by  it.  If  the  debts  of  a  country  are  heavy  and  the  cur 
rency  is  inadequate  to  its  ready  payment,  then  is  usury  intoler 
able  ;  for  all  usury  only  increases  the  debt  which  is  already  too 
large  to  be  liquidated  by  the  existing  amount  of  money.  The 
result  is,  that  usury  in  hard  times  inevitably  bankrupts  men 
who,  in  better  times,  might  endure  its  pressure  for  a  time,  but 
now  are  crushed  and  destroyed  by  its  force.  The  reason  there 
is  a  scarcity  of  money  is  this :  The  brokers  have  money  to  loan 
when  the  farmers'  have  nothing  to  sell,  and  the  mechanic  can 
find  no  market  for  his  labor,  nor  the  merchant  for  his  merchan 
dise.  They  are  in  the  greatest  need  of  money,  and  the  broker 
gives  out  that  it  is  scarce,  and  he  loans  at  ruinous  rates  until  his 
stock  is  exhausted ;  he  then  calls  in  the  aid  of  his  old  friend, 
the  banker,  who  can  accommodate  to  the  fullest  extent  of  his 
demand ;  or  if  he  should  need  further  help,  he  calls  on  his  finan 
cial  adjunct,  the  counterfeiter,  who  is  engaged  in  corrupting  the 
currency  and  coin  of  the  country,  just  as  the  broker  is  engaged 
in  obstructing  their  free  circulation  among  the  people — each 
doing  his'  utmost  to  enrich  himself  by  robbing  the  country. 


810  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL 

After  sending  their  paper  trash  to  the  farthest  extremities  of  the 
land,  thereby  making  flush  times  and  plenty  of  money,  to  make 
the  excitement  general  and  the  delusion  complete,  they  engage 
in  sham  sales  of  railroad  bonds,  running  them  up  to  par  and  far 
above  par,  and  quoting  them  in  their  bank  detectors  as  the  most 
valuable  of  all  securities,  until  every  one  is  anxious  to  exchange 
property  for  railroad  stock.  By  this  trick  of  the  trade,  the 
brokers  rid  themselves  of  all  this  trash ;  get  all  the  money  of 
the  country  into  their  coffers ;  secure  mortgages  upon  all  of  the 
real  estate  which  may  be  embarrassed,  and  the  individual  notes 
of  unsuspecting  endorsers,  all  of  which  have  been  given  for  fancy 
stocks  and  moonshine  investments.  Then,  in  the  spirit  of  pub 
lic  benefactors,  they  commence  to  warn  the  public  and  create  a 
panic,  send  startling  telegraphic  dispatches  to  the  daily  papers, 
setting  forth  some  European  failures,  and  then  conspire  together  to 
crush  two  or  three  leading  commercial  houses  in  the  several  cen 
tres  of  trade.  This,  of  course,  destroys  public  confidence,  and 
then  a  general  upheaving  in  the  monetary  world  ensues,  and  a 
crash  in  all  business  soon  follows.  Then  a  BANK-NOTE  DETECTOK, 
containing  the  latest  news,  is  issued  by  the  brokers,  in  which 
they  expose  counterfeit  money,  decimate  bank  paper,  and  outlaw 
railroad  and  city  bonds,  which  have  been  sent  out  to  the  public 
by  their  own  hands,  and  then,  with  a  cool  impudence,  which 
would  challenge  the  admiration  of  the  devil,  they  commence  the 
mad-dog  cry  of  hard  times  and  scarcity  of  money. 

The  truth  is,  that  money  is  just  as  plenty  in  hard  times,  as  a 
general  thing,  as  in  others,  with  only  this  difference:  that  in  easy 
times,  money  is  in  the  hands  of  the  people;  m  hard  times,  it  is 
in  the  hands  of  the  few  who  combine  to  make  it  scarce,  that  they 
may  speculate  upon  it. 

This  is  the  brief  history  of  the  cause  of  the  scarcity  of  money. 
Money  will  be  used  in  business,  whether  interest  is  high  or  low ; 
that  is  what  it  was  coined  for,  and  it  is  the  only  use  which  can 
be  made  of  it,  except  that  if  the  rates  of  money  are  high,  it  can 
not  be  used  advantageously  in  business;  if  low,  it  can.  Usury 
laws  certainly  do  not  lessen  the  amount  of  money ;  they  only 
protect  it  in  its  proper  and  legitimate  service ;  and  certainly  it 
must  be  manifest  to  every  one,  that  when  nothing  makes  money 


CRIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL   WAE.  311 

but  money  itself,  and  that  by  usury,  that  the  rich  who  receive  it 
are  made  richer,  and  the  poor  who  pay  it  are  made  poorer,  when 
if,  by  usury  laws  capital  was  restrained,  it  would  flow  into  the 
legitimate  channels  of  business,  and  labor  would  be  employed 
and  remunerated,  and  such  a  thing  as  an  entire  stagnation  in 
business,  by  which  ruin  overtakes  so  many,  would  be  entirely 
unknown  in  the  country. 

In  proof  of  this,  we  summon  the  fact  that  in  times  of  peace 
a  financial  crisis  has  never  occurred,  which  was  not  produced  by 
speculation  and  usury.  By  a  trick  of  stock-gamblers,  they  create 
a  superabundance  of  paper  money,  railroad  bonds  and  fancy 
stocks,  that  a  pressure  may  ensue,  in  the  meantime  passing  it  into 
other  hands  at  high  rates,  just  as  greenhorn  gamblers  on  Mis 
sissippi  steamboats  are  permitted  at  cards  to  win  the  first  games, 
to  inspire  self-confidence  that  the  old  blackleg  may,  at  his  leisure, 
sweep  the  stakes  and  seize  the  pile. 

THE  MORALS  OF  USUEY. 

The  question  of  usury  is  not  only  one  of  political  economy, 
affecting  the  vitality  of  commerce,  the  integrity  of  the  civil  gov 
ernment  and  the  transactions  of  all  the  current  business  of  the 
country,  but  also  one  which,  in  every  age  of  the  world  among 
civilized  nations,  has  been  a  part  of  the  religion  of  the  churches 
and  a  pillar  of  morality.  « 

This  crime  is  forbidden  in  the  Decalogue,  under  the  broad  and 
comprehensive  commandment :  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal." 

To  steal  is  to  take  the  property  without  due  compensation, 
contrary  to  the  wish  and  against  the  consent  of  the  lawful 
owner. 

Taking  usury  is  clearly  and  plainly  inhibited  by  this  com 
mandment.  The  common  clandestine  thief  takes  advantage  of 
the  owner,  and  purloins  his  property  without  his  consent.  The 
highway  robber  assaults  the  traveller,  takes  advantage  of  his 
weakness,  and  divests  him  of  his  property  against  his  will  and 
without  his  consent.  The  burglar  enters  the  dwelling  at  night, 
and  availing  himself  of  the  slumber  of  the  inmates,  carries  off 
the  property,  contrary  to  the  consent  of  the  owner.  The  incen- 


312  CRIMES   OP  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

diary  goes  at  midnight  and  destroys  by  torchlight,  houses  and 
property,  without  the  consent  of  the  owners.  The  broker,  usurer 
and  paper-shaver  (convertible  terms)  find  their  victims  in  neces 
sity,  and  take  their  usurious  interest  without  their  real  consent. 
Side  by  side  with  their  robbery,  arson,  burglary,  swindling, 
USURY  takes  its  place  as  a  violation  of  the  great  law  of  God, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  steal."  In  perfect  conformity  or  harmony  with 
the  characteristics  of  usury,  is  the  denunciation  it  receives  in  the 
fifteenth  psalm.  He  is  excluded  from  the  tabernacle  of  worship 
in  the  wilderness,  from  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  and  from  the 
kingdom  of  God.  The  classification  given  to  the  usurer  by  the 
great  political  economist,  is  well  worthy  of  the  attention  of  be 
lievers  in  Divine  Revelation,  and  it  will  commend  itself  to  the 
good  sense  of  the  people  everywhere. 

The  usurer  is  excluded  : — 

1st.  From  the  society  of  those  who  "walk  uprightly" — those 
who  are  fair  and  honest  in  their  dealings  with  their  fellow  men. 

2d.  From  those  "who  work  in  righteousness." 

3d.  From  men  who  "  speak  the  truth  in  their  heart." 

He  is  then  associated  in  character  with  those : — 

1st.  Who  "  backbite  with  their  tongue." 

2d.  Who  "  do  evil  to  their  neighbor." 

3d.  Who  "  take  up  a  reproach  against  their  neighbor." 

4th.  With  those  in  whose  eyes  a  vile  person  is  countenanced. 

5th.  With  those  who  dishonor  them  that  fear  the  Lord. 

Cth.  With  those  who  take  a  reward  against  the  innocent,  either 
by  swearing  falsely  to  condemn  them,  or  by  espousing  the  cause 
of  the  guilty. 

This  general  denunciation,  in  which  the  usurer  is  made  con 
spicuously  enormous  at  first  sight,  appears  ungenerous  only  be 
cause  his  crime  has  been  made  comparatively  reputable  through, 
the  very  power  which  his  money  has  given  to  him.  He  has 
sought  to  subsidize  the  press  and  secure  its  advocacy  of  the  doc 
trine  of  FREE  TRADE  IN  MONEY  ;  he  has  almost  silenced  the 
voice  of  the  pulpit  against  his  great  wrong,  and  he  has  succeed 
ed  in  introducing  text-books  in  the  colleges  of  the  country, 
making  this  precious  system  a  part  of  the  standard  science  of 
political  economy.  Then,  of  course,  the  subject  of  usury  is  kept 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAE.  313 

from  the  view  of  three  great  classes  of  the  community  —  the 
readers  of  newspapers,  the  attendants  on  churches  and  students 
at  colleges.  But  the  truth  of  God  will  not  be  silenced.  Heaven's 
law  is  unchangeably  eternal,  and  it  is  eminently  proper  that  the 
opinions  of  the  psalmist  and  the  just  judgment  of  God  concern 
ing  usury  and  the  usurer,  shall  be  vindicated. 

The  usurer  cannot  be  an  upright  man  or  one  that  worketh 
righteousness.  There  is  one  great  law  for  all  upright  men.  It 
is  this  :  "  Whatsoever  you  would  that  men  should  do  unto  you,  do 
ye  even  so  to  them."  It  scarcely  needs  analysis  to  prove  the 
utter  impossibility  of  the  usurer  conforming  to  this  law : 

1st.  He  violates  the  law  of  God  plainly  and  unequivocally. 

2d.  He  violates  the  law  of  the  land  which  puts  a  limit  to  the  in 
crease  of  interest  on  money. 

3d.  He  violates  the  very  essence  of  the  law  which  says : 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.7/ 

The  usurer  is  very  justly  classed  with  men  who  speak  falsely 
in  their  heart.  His  papers  are  drawn  to  avoid  the  letter  of  the 
law ;  his  business  is  for  the  most  part  done  privately,  to  avoid 
arrest  when  his  crime  of  usury  may  be  plead  in  court ;  he  is  a 
man  who  makes  the  very  paper  presented  to  the  court  show  forth 
a  lie.  The  uprightness  and  morality  of  usury  may  well  be 
judged  of,  when  it  is  remembered  that  nearly  every  transaction 
in  a  broker's  shop  is  amenable  to  the  criminal  laws  of  the  land. 
Nor  is  it  an  injustice  to  give  him  his  place  side  by  side  with  him 
that  backbiteth  with  his  tongue ;  for  no  slander  doth  so  destroy 
the  reputation  of  a  business-man  as  that  he  is  indebted  to  the 
brokers.  Nor  do  any  class  of  men  so  relentlessly  seek  the  de 
struction  of  their  victim  as  do  the  brokers.  The  courts  are 
filled  with  the  foreclosures  of  mortgages  by  which  property  is 
to  be  sacrificed  in  the  hands  of  the  debtors.  The  newspapers 
are  filled  with  the  publication  to  the  world  of  the  unnecessary 
ruin  and  forced  bankruptcy  of  the  unfortunate  body  of  men 
who  fall  a  prey  to  brokers.  "  HE  DOETH  EVIL  TO  HIS  NEIGH- 
BOB."  The  wages  of  labor,  the  whole  value  of  property,  the 
happiness  of  the  community,  and  the  peace  of  families,  are  de 
stroyed  by  usury.  Every  sheriff's  sale  is  a  stroke  at  the  value 
of  property,  and  affects  the  third  and  disinterested  party  only 


314  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

second  to  the  immediate  sufferers,  and  makes  properly  value 
less. 

Nor  is  the  comparison  an  injustice  to  the  usurer  when  he  is 
placed  upon  a  level  with  the  man  who  takes  a  reward  against 
the  innocent ;  who  hires  himself  to  prosecute  an  innocent  man, 
or  he  who  forswears  himself  for  money.  The  wretch  who  would 
extort  a  promise  of  reward  from  a  drowning  man,  is  the  fit  com 
panion  of  him  who  would  extort  money  from  a  man  in  any 
other  kind  of  distress  whatever.  So  after  this  manner  the 
word  of  God  deals  with  the  usurer. 

HOW  THE  EIGHTS  OP  PROPEETY  ARE  INJURED  BY  USURY. 

We  will  only  cite  the  sheriff's  sale  as  an  illustration  of  this 
point.  A.  owns  property,  but  wishes  to  sell  it.  It  is  worth 
§5,000  in  cash.  B.  wishes  to  buy  just  such  property  and  thinks 
the  price  a  fair  one,  but  C.  has  mortgaged  his  farm  to  D.,  and 
cannot  borrow  the  money  to  redeem  it  at  a  less  rate  than  twenty- 
five  per  cent.,  which  rate  of  interest  he  has  been  paying  for  the 
last  two  years ;  but  even  at  that  rate  he  cannot  give  the  addi 
tional  security.  His  property  is  already  mortgaged  for  one-fourth 
of  its  value,  and  it  is  now  due.  The  result  is,  his  farm  goes  to 
sale  and  only  brings  $2,000,  though  it  is  well  worth  $8,000,  and 
is  so  regarded,  and  the  mortgagee  (the  usurer)  buys  the  property 
at  that  price.  But  B.,  who  would  buy  the  property  of  A.,  sees  that 
property  sells  at  one-fourth  of  its  accredited  value  at  sheriff's 
sale,  and  declines  purchasing  it;  for  the  frequency  of  sheriffs' 
sales  utterly  depreciates  the  value  of  all  property ;  so  he  awaits 
and  prefers  to  buy  at  sheriffs'  sale,  or,  what  is  its  equivalent,  he 
will  seek  out  some  good  farm  whose  owner  is  in  distress,  loans 
his  money  to  him;  mortgages  his  property;  has  a  sheriffs'  sale 
of  his  own,  and  gets  his  property  at  a  corresponding  sacrifice. 

When  sheriffs'  sales  are  common,  property  has  no  value :  money 
alone  is  valuable  and  has  power. 

THE   EVIL   EFFECTS   OF   USURY   UPON   SOCIETY  —  INDUCING 

CRIME. 

The  most  lamentable  feature  in  the  character  of  usury  is  its 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  315 

results.  Thousands  of  those  who  become  the  victims  of  this 
crime,  shrink  from  the  public  gaze,  and  flee  from  society  and 
seek  refuge  in  obscure  and  solitary  poverty,  to  hide  their  weak 
ness  and  disgrace ;  whilst  others  grow  desperate,  and  feeling  that 
society  has  tolerated  their  robbery,  grow  reckless  and  engage  in 
open  theft  and  robbery  to  indemnify  themselves  for  the  forays 
made  upon  them  under  cover  of  law. 

There  are  still  others  who  are  broken-hearted  and  fly  to  the 
bowl  and  sink  under  the  consuming  fires  of  dissipation  and  in 
temperance.  But  there  are  the  great  masses  who  are  thrown  out 
of  employment,  who  are  driven  to  either  crime  or  starvation  as 
a  fearful  alternative. 

Usury  is  the  greatest  of  financial  crime.  The  great  estimate 
placed  upon  wealth  and  the  social  and  political  power  which  it 
commands,  makes  it  the  desire  of  all  to  make  money,  even  at 
the  expense  of  virtue.  To  be  rich  is  to  be  everything  worthy 
of  human  aspiration.  It  is  for  this  cause  that  men  peril  every 
thing  to  become  wealthy.  The  great  majority  of  the  young  men 
of  this  country  are  poor ;  they  have,  in  order  to  commence  busi 
ness,  to  borrow  money.  In  times  like  the  present,  they  have  to 
pay  usury ;  to  succeed  in  business  they  must  make  more  than 
can  be  ordinarily  made  in  the  legitimate  business.  They  early 
learn  habits  of  dishonesty,  to  atone  for  their  poverty,  and  the 
crime  of  usury  practiced  on  them.  If  they  see  failure  staring 
them  in  the  face,  the  office  of  the  lottery  is  their  first  resort,  and, 
like  the  foolish  philosopher  who  sought  the  source  of  the  rain 
bow  to  gather  colors,  they  buy  lottery  tickets  until  their  present 
money  and  visionary  hopes  have  forever  passed  away  together. 

To  be  dishonored  in  the  usurer's  office,  to  endure  protest,  is 
more  than  their  youthful  hope  can  brook.  In  hopes  of  redeem 
ing  his  paper  in  due  time,  upon  the  part  of  the  drawer,  and  a 
determination  that  he  shall  redeem  it  at  the  time  appointed  upon 
the  part  of  the  drawer,  the  note  is  drawn  with  a  forged  endorse 
ment.  Then  soon  comes  open  forgery.  In  other  cases,  passing 
counterfeit  money  and  bold,  open  robbery  —  and  theft  and  mur 
der  are  resorted  to,  to  repair  a  fortune  squandered  upon  usurers. 
Unfortunately  for  the  country  in  every  crisis,  we  have  such  ex 
hibitions  of  crime  as  make  any  other  illustrations  superfluous. 


316  CEIMES   OP  THE  CIVIL.  WAK. 

And  to  fasten  the  guilt  where  it  lies  directly,  these  times  are 
made  by  the  broker  to  order. 

For  want  of  employment,  thousands  of  men  commit  crime, 
who  loathe  it  until  necessity  has  forced  them  to  resort  to  it  as 
the  means  of  a  livelihood.  And  whatever  supports  even  idle 
ness,  contributes  to  crime  in  all  of  its  various  forms  and  charac 
ters.  Men  who  live  and  have  not  property,  must  labor,  beg, 
steal,  or  starve.  When  there  is  no  employment  to  be  had,  men 
cannot  labor.  They  will  not  and  ought  not  to  starve  ;  then  the 
country  has  the  revolting  alternative  of  pauperism  or  theft,  as 
the  means  of  support  for  the  masses  of  the  people  who  live  by 
daily  labor. 

Upon  the  other  hand,  the  evil  is  not  less  to  even  the  usurer 
and  his  family.  In  his  case,  is  an  example  of  a  man  living  in 
idleness  by  the  commission  of  crime  as  an  avocation  in  life,  giv 
ing  respectability  to  offensive  wrong-doing. 

THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  EVIL  IS  SUCH  AS  TO  DEMAND  MOST  STRIN 
GENT  LAWS  AGAINST  USURY. 

In  an  impartially  written  article  a  great  injustice  would  be  done, 
to  a  most  momentous  question,  to  suffer  any  merely  political  con 
sideration  to  have  any  bearing  upon  it  whatever.  Every  con 
sideration  of  that  character  has  been  carefully  excluded.  But 
the  truth  must  not  be  sacrificed  to  gratify  even  a  political  party, 
no  difference  under  what  name  it  may  be  recognized,  especially 
when  all  the  political  parties  of  the  country  are  alike  implicated 
in  the  great  wrong  of  paper-shaving.  Paper-shaving  is  an  evil 
in  which  the  State  governments  have  not  only  been  a  participant, 
but  direct  sufferers,  and  the  whole  people  have  been  victims. 
Railroad  companies  have  been  formed,  of  which  counties  become 
heavy  stockholders.  Bonds  were  issued,  drawing  high  per  cent, 
interest  per  annum,  for  every  dollar  of  which  the  counties,  and 
all  of  their  improvements,  are  bound  by  mortgage.  These 
mortgaged  bonds  have  been  sold  in  market  down  as  low  as  fifty 
per  cent. 

Here,  then,  is  the  most  ruinous  usury  given  by  the  country  or 
their  guardians,  to  stock-brokers,  besides  a  constantly  accruing 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  317 

interest  on  money,  which  the  people  have  never  received.  But 
the  States  have  set  no  better  example  to  their  citizens.  For  any 
delinquent  taxes  necessary  to  pay  this  extraordinary  squander 
ing,  the  law  demands  twenty-five  per  cent,  interest  until  paid, 
when  the  interest  is  at  least  fifty  per  cent,  upon  the  amount 
realized  in  the  sale  of  the  bonds. 

"Will  a  free  people  long  tolerate  this  outrage  upon  their  rights  ? 
Can  any  State  prosper  under  such  rule,  or  rather  misrule? 

The  evil  has  assumed  the  form  of  peculation,  or  public  rob 
bery,  upon  the  part  of  public  officers.  The  money  of  the  various 
treasuries  of  the  States,  has  been  used  as  the  basis  of  nearly  half 
of  the  country,  in  which  some  of  the  treasurers  have  been  par 
ticipants  in  the  swindle  and  usury.  Nor  did  the  country  fare 
any  better  when  the  public  lands  were  brought  into  market. 
Brokers  and  the  lackeys  of  brokers,  sat  in  the  land-office  levy 
ing  black-mail  upon  distant  purchasers  who  were  hunting  homes ; 
and  loaning  money  at  forty  per  cent,  interest  per  annum. 

Merchants  have  had  to  pay  a  corresponding  tax  for  the  use  of 
money,  when  the  very  prevalence  of  usury  made  it  impossible 
for  them  to  collect  their  debts.  Every  part  of  society,  every 
branch  of  business,  and  all  the  citizens  of  the  States,  have  felt 
the  evil. 

No  man,  except  the  usurer,  has  escaped  the  general  ruin. 

The  clear  and  unquestionable  right  to  legislate  against  usury, 
arises  from  the  very  nature  of  the  government  of  society.  The 
true  object  of  all  just  government,  is  to  protect  men  in  the  en 
joyment  of  their  rights ;  to  protect  or  preserve  the  weak  from 
the  aggression  of  the  strong ;  to  prevent  the  learned  from  impos 
ing  on  the  unlearned ;  to  rescue  the  innocent  from  the  conspir 
acies  of  the  malicious ;  to  place  the  unsuspecting  honest  man  as 
far  as  may  be,  beyond  the  grasp  of  the  vicious. 

For  the  purpose  of  justice,  it  is  of  no  consequence  whatever, 
how  the  rights  of  men  are  invaded,  nor  by  whom  society  is  in 
corporated,  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  each  of  its  members 
from  injury  and  aggression. 

Unless  society  proposes  to  do  this  much,  it  were  better  to 
abandon  it  for  that  personal  protection  and  self-defence  which  all 
men  are  entitled  to* 


318  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

One  of  the  essential  rights  of  man  is  the  right  to  property, 
and  taking  or  appropriating  any  man's  property  to  the  use  of 
another,  and  contrary  to  his  will,  is  such  an  outrage  and  crime 
as  make  it  the  duty  of  society  to  recognize  and  punish.  If  this 
be  not  done,  individual  rights  would  be  better  protected  without 
laws  an  1  without  society.  The  strong  need  no  protection,  but 
the  weak  and  defenceless  do,  and  hence  the  necessity  for  society 
and  its  proper  basis.  One  of  the  strongest  and  most  frequently 
urged  objection  to  USURY  LAWS  is,  that "  they  cannot  be  enforced." 
Is  this  the  case  ?  Can  it  be  true  ?  Suppose  they  cannot  be  en 
forced.  What  is  the  reason  ?  Is  it  possible  that  the  legal  power 
of  money  is  such  that  it  defies  the  laws  even  in  the  hands  of 
men  who  are  bound  by  oath  to  execute  them  ?  It  is  not  well 
worth  the  trouble  of  every  political  economist,  to  look  into  this 
matter.  It  is  well  worthy  the  attention  of  the  moralist  also. 
The  corrupting  power  of  money  is  such  that  it  undermines  the 
positive  commandments  of  God ;  overrides  the  laws  and  regu 
lations  of  the  Church,  and  draws  into  the  current  of  its  destruc 
tive  power,  the  whole  Christian  system  of  morals. 

That  a  law  is  not  executed  is  no  argument  for  its  repeal,  but 
is  an  overwhelming  reason  in  favor  of  increased  effort  to  secure 
its  execution.  Let  us  see  what  it  amounts  to.  Among  the  In 
dians,  where  theft  is  accounted  a  national  virtue,  to  make  laws 
against  theft  would  be  thought  a  great  folly.  On  the  frontier,  it 
is  deemed  imprudent  to  legislate  against  carrying  concealed 
weapons,  because  they  are  found  in  the  pockets  of  every  man. 

To  allow  the  various  classes  of  criminals  of  the  country  to  pre 
scribe  the  legislation  against  crime,  would  soon  rid  your  statute- 
book  of  the  whole  criminal  code.  But,  say  the  friends  of  usury, 
the  present  law  cannot  be  enforced.  Why  not  ?  Have  we  no 
justice  of  the  peace?  no  constables?  no  sheriffs?  no  courts?  no 
jails?  no  grand  jurors?  no  honest  men  to  testify?  no  prosecuting 
attorney  to  do  his  duty?  no  honest  jurors  to  fix  his  penalty?  no 
officers  to  enforce  it  ?  Let  it  not  go  out  to  the  world  that  we  are  in 
a  state  of  anarchy  !  Ah,  but  replies  the  objector  very  wisely,  you 
cannot  get  them  all  convicted.  Ah,  ha!  when  and  in  what 
country  were  all  horse-thieves  arrested  and  convicted,  all  mur 
derers  brought  to  justice  and  all  incendiaries  discovered  ?  None 
under  heaven. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAH.  319 

Must  civilized  communities,  therefore,  repeal  all  laws  and  abol 
ish  all  penalties  against  theft,  murder  and  arson?  This  would 
be  the  conclusion  according  to  that  analogy  of  argument ;  and 
the  conclusion  is  just  as  forcible  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 
Plow  shall  the  law  be  enforced  ?  By  the  influence  of  magis 
trates,  who,  instead  of  ridiculing  the  law  and  speaking  contempt 
uously  of  the  moral  regulations  of  the  government,  ought  to 
remember  the  solemn  obligations  of  their  oath,  and  not  forget 
that  the  faithful  magistrate  bears  not  the  sword  of  God  in  vain. 
Let  all  peace  officers  instead  of  notifying  the  public  that  usury 
laws  cannot  be  enforced,  trace  the  violations  to  their  origin,  and 
deal  with  the  criminal  according  to  law.  Let  the  Prosecuting 
Attorney  fearlessly  do  his  duty.  Let  Grand  Jury-men  report 
and  investigate  all  delinquencies  coming  within  their  notice  or 
arresting  their  attention.  Let  every  law-abiding  citizen  remem 
ber  that  it  is  a  strict  observance  and  faithful  execution  of  the  laws 
of  our  land  that  gives  security  to  our  lives,  liberty  and  proper 
ty  ;  and  if  this  law  be  enforced,  the  blessings  of  Heaven  and  the 
prosperity  of  the  country  will  accompany  its  execution ;  no  dif 
ference  what  the  law  may  be  within  the  clearly  recognized  limits 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  State. 

Make  the  law  against  usury  penal,  with  fine  and  imprison 
ment,  as  in  New  York  and  Tennessee.  Make  it  a  disqualifica 
tion  for  office,  as  in  Florida.  Make  it  the  duty  of  the  Grand 
Jury  to  present,  and  the  Prosecuting  Attorney  to  prosecute  the 
usurer  as  he  does  other  felons  who  are  not  as  well  dressed  as 
himself,  and  you  will  soon  hear  no  more  of  the  cry  from  the 
timid  and  the  boast  of  the  usurer,  that  usury  laws  cannot  be 
executed. 

The  enormity  of  the  character  of  the  usurer,  the  intense  hol- 
lowness  and  perfidy  of  his  real  nature,  is  nowhere  exhibited  in 
such  hideous  aspects,  as  it  is  in  his  appeal  to  the  deeply  injured 
and  outraged  debtor's  honor  to  pay  his  usurious  debts. 

After  having  taken  advantage  of  the  poor  fellow's  necessity, 
binding  up  his  property  by  mortgage,  then  harassing  him  by 
duns,  then  obstructing  him  in  his  business  transactions,  and  dis 
honoring  him  among  business  men  —  then,  after  all  his  efforts, 
fail  to  destroy  him,  with  most  extraordinary  civility,  he  appeals 


320  CHIMES   OP  THE  CIVIL   WAE. 

to  him  and  tells  him,  "  You  are  in  honor  bound  to  pay  your 
usurious  debts."  And  even  professed  Christians  will  use  this 
argument  to  enforce  usury.  It  is  the  old  argument  of  honor 
among  thieves,  with  just  this  difference,  that  the  old  argument 
applied  to  the  case  where  both  parties  were  alike  dishonest.  Is 
it  possible  that  any  well-informed  or  honest  man  will  contend 
that  there  is  any  obligation  resting  on  any  citizen  to  violate  the 
laws  of  his  country  ?  If  the  laws  may  be  violated  with  impu 
nity,  there  is  no  longer  any  security  for  life,  liberty  or  property. 
But  if  the  usury  laws  may  be  violated  without  punishment, 
why  may  not  any  and  every  other  law  ?  Who  is  to  be  the  judge 
of  the  particular  laws  which  may  be  violated  with  impunity, 
and  which  men  are  in  honor  bound  to  violate  ? 


CEIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  321 


CHAPTER  II. 

CURSE  OF  THE  FUNDING  SYSTEM. 
^ 

PUBLIC  stocks  in  all  countries  have  been  justly  accounted  a  great 
incubus  upon  trade.  They  are  always  the  property  and  support 
of  idle  people,  who  live  on  the  interest  as  annuities.  This  of 
fers  to  both  idle  men  and  idle  capital  a  premium  for  their  idle 
ness,  and  destroys  the  ordinary  business  of  a  country,  by  with 
drawing  the  active  capital  necessary  to  legitimate,  general  and 
successful  prosecution  of  trade  and  industry. 

These  idlers  live  upon  the  labor  of  the  people,  dragged  from 
them  by  the  tax  gang.  Just  as  standing  armies  are  recruited 
from  the  families  of  the  poor,  so  are  taxes  gathered  from  the  labor 
of  the  poor,  to  keep  up  the  market  value  of  public  stocks. 

The  funding  system  embodies  all  of  the  odious  features  blend 
ed,  of  monarchy,  aristocracy,  and  military  despotism.  It  is  a 
species  of  government  which  is  made  up  of,  and  administered  by 
bondholders,  bankers,  idlers,  speculators,  stockbrokers,  consumers 
of  other  men's  labor,  tax-gatherers,  exciseman,  spies,  and  mili 
tary  satraps  for  the  subjugation  of  producers  and  tax-payers. 
No  diiference  what  may  be  the  nominal  form,  such  a  government 
is  essentially  a  despotism. 

The  funding  systems  are  always  based  upon  public  debts,  for 
the  purpose  of  transferring  the  control  of  the  government  into 
the  hands  of  bondholders  as  security  for  their  obligations. 

"Whilst  the  funding  systems  last,  the  government  is  adminis 
tered  in  the  interest  of  the  bondholders,  who  control  its  legisla 
tion.  Every  independent  government  is  jealous  of  the  rival 
power  of  those  monied  oligarchies,  which  dethrone  monarchies 
and  destroy  governments  by  the  transfer  of  the  debt  from  the 
people  of  the  country  from  whom  it  is  due  to  strangers,  who 
thereby  secure  a  powerful  and  dangerous  influence  in  the  govern 
ment,  and  work  its  destruction. 
21 


322  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  the  founder  of  the  system  of  voluntary  gov 
ernment,  was  the  deadly  enemy  of  the  funding  system ;  because 
the  American  debt,  if  concentrated  in  any  government  of  Europe, 
through  its  agents  and  emissaries,  would  exercise  undue  influ 
ence  in  our  own,  but  if  scattered  through  many  governments, 
would  secure  againstthe  new  government  dangerous  combinations. 
In  the  present  funding  systems  all  of  these  evils  are  combined. 

THE  EXTENT   AND  AMOUNT   OF  THE    DEBT   OF  THE   UNITED 

STATES. 

December  3d,  1866,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  reports  our 
debt  at  $2,551,422,121.20. 

Including  treasury  notes,  it  was  $2,681,751,081.82. 

These  are  the  figures  given  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

In  June  20,  1866,  the  audited  debt  was  $2,783,425,879.21. 

The  uncertainty,  the  want  of  candor  and  pervading  corruption 
of  the  Treasury  Department,  make  it  impossible  to  ascertain  the 
exact  amount,  but  the  outstanding  claims,  accounts,  certificates, 
bounties  unpaid  and  every  other  form  of  debt  with  capitalized 
pensions,  will  swell  the  amount  to  the  estimate  of  Thaddeus  Ste 
vens,  at  $4,000,000,000  at  least,  and  the  reports  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  to  the  contrary,  notwithstanding,  the  debt  is 
constantly  increasing,  and  will  increase  in  all  time  to  come,  under 
the  present  management. 

THE  FRAUDS  OF  THE  BONDS. 

FIRST,  They  cost  but  about  forty  cents  on  the  dollar.  To  pay 
them,  the  value  of  the  face  will  be  two  hundred  and  fifty  per 
cent.,  or  in  plainer  English,  we  pay  the  debt  twice  and  one-half. 

SECOND,  We  are  paying  interest  on  these  bonds  at  the  rate  of 
7.30  per  cent,  in  greenbacks,  on  the  face  of  the  notes,  which, 
considering  their  real  value  at  forty  cents  on  the  dollar,  is  18.25 
per  cent. ;  but  when  these  seven-thirty  bonds  are  changed  into 
six  per  cent,  gold-bearing  bonds,  then  we  are  paying  in  gold  fif 
teen  per  cent.,  besides  paying  the  debt  twice  and. a  half. 

But  if  these  bonds  are  made  the  basis  of  banking,  the  banks 
clear  fifteen  per  cent,  per  annum. 


CHIMES   OF   THE    CIVIL    WAR.  323 

Then  the  banker  has  upon  the  original  amount  invested,  as 
follows,  namely : — 

Interest  on  bonds,  15  per  cent,  gold,  in  greenbacks 

at  149 21  per  cent. 

Amount  invested  in  banking,  15  per  cent,  on  the  face 

and  upon  the  whole 45  per  cent. 

Total  interest  per  annum 66  percent. 

In  August  2,  1864,  one  dollar  in  gold  would  buy  $2.89  in 
greenbacks. 

Every  soldier  under  the  old  law  was  entitled  to  $100  bounty 
in  gold. 

The  soldier  was  paid  in  greenbacks,  and  went  to  the  brokers  to 
buy  gold,  and  got  for  his  hundred  dollars  in  greenbacks,  thirty- 
four  dollars  in  gold. 

On  the  same  day,  the  broker  who  had  the  one  hundred  dollars 
which  the  soldier  ought  to  have  had,  took  his  hundred  dollars 
into  the  market  and  sold  it  for  two  hundred  and  eighty-nine 
dollars,  drawing  6  per  cent,  interest  in  gold. 

The  interest  for  one  year  would  be  17.34  cents  in  gold,  or 
17.34  per  cent,  on  the  original  one  hundred  dollars.  This  17.34 
turned  into  greenbacks  at  1.60  for  gold,  the  selling  price  next 

year  would  make  in  greenbacks 27.74  per  cent. 

Then  the  National  Bank  stock  was  worth  15 

per  cent,  interest. 

Interest  on  the  original  investment ,..-.43.35  per  cent. 

Total  interest $71. 19  greenbacks. 

Making  more  than  twice  in  greenbacks,  for  one  year's  interest 
given  to  the  banker,  what  was  given  to  the  soldier  in  gold  for  his 
whole  bounty. 

In  fact,  the  banker's  dollar  draws  71.19  per  cent,  interest. 

And  the  banker's  dollar  to  him  was  worth  just  8.12  times  as 
much  as  the  soldier's  was  to  him. 

The  interest  on  the  debt,  duly  compounded,  will  pay  the  debt 
every  eleven  and  two-thirds  years. 

It  will,  without  further  compounding,  pay  it  off  twice  in  every 


324  CHIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

twenty-three  and  one-third  years.     It  will  pay  it  three  times 
every  thirty-five  years. 

It  will  pay  it  four  times  every  forty-six  and  two-third  years, 
and  still  this  hateful  monopoly  remains  with  all  of  the  army  of 
revenue  officers,  and  army  of  military  officers  devouring  the 
whole  country,  putting  the  yoke  as  a  fixture  on  the  necks  of  the 
people,  and  placing  the  bondholders  beyond  the  reach  of  want, 
and  irresponsible  to  any  form  of  taxation. 

THE   CURSE   AND   POWERS    OF    CORRUPTION   OF    THE    FUNDING 

SYSTEM. 

The  funding  system  is  a  political  machinery  of  greater  power, 
more  complicated  and  intricate  in  its  ramifications,  than  exists, 
or  can  long  exist  in  any  elective  system  of  government,  which 
exerts  an  influence  utterly  incompatible  with  any  manner  of  con 
stitutional  freedom  —  freedom  of  elections,  freedom  of  speech, 
freedom  of  the  press  or  purity  of  the  judiciary. 

The  extent  of  this  power  is  incalculable.  The  magnitude  of 
its  force  is  irresistible. 

Five  hundred  millions  of  dollars  annually  collected  and  ex 
pended  —  collected  from  the  laborers  already  oppressed,  to  be 
lavished  upon  capitalists  already  corrupted  and  overbearing  — 
has  the  double  power  to  destroy  free  government  and  degrade 
the  people,  for  which  purpose  it  is  employed.  The  amount  thus 
collected  from  the  people  places  every  manner  of  business  at  the 
mercy  of  capital,  which  may  create  or  destroy  at  will,  and  keep 
it  in  perpetual  terror  and  control  its  political  action. 

The  amount  thus  disbursed  is  a  corruption  fund  employed  in 
the  subornation  of  the  people.  The  whole  money  of  the  fund 
ing  system  is  at  the  service  of  the  monopolists,  to  buy  up  the 
bread,  meat  and  clothing,  and  extort  double  prices  from  the  poor 
at  the  peril  of  their  living.  In  addition  to  the  power  of  the 
money  employed,  is  the  power  exercised  by  the  army  of  asses 
sors,  collectors,  inspectors,  detectives,  spies,  pimps  and  common 
informers,  who  consume  a  revenue  sufficient  to  carry  on  the  gov 
ernment.  These  officers  employ  their  functions  in  direct  influ 
ence  upon  all  the  elections,  and  under  the  present  revenue  sys- 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR.  325 

tern,  suspend  distilleries  for  violations  of  the  law  if  the  propri 
etors  and  employees  withhold  their  support  at  elections  from  the 
party  in  power ;  or  compound  with  them,  if  they  consent  to 
exert  an  active  influence  in  favor  of  the  local  adherents  of  the 
ruling  political  organization,  with  other  manufacturing  establish 
ments.  Other  corresponding  means  are  employed  for  the  same 
purpose. 

These  officers  are  regularly  distributed  throughout  the  coun 
try,  and  with  their  subordinates,  who  are  active  tricksters, 
schooled  in  the  low  artifices  which  disgrace  America,  and  carry 
elections,  there  is  nowhere  else  such  a  complete  political  police. 
But  these  men  are,  without  our  consent,  employed  in  our  name 
—  paid  with  our  money.  The  influence  of  this  vast,  varied  and 
corrupting  patronage  extends  farther,  and  is  even  more  baleful ; 
it  reaches  into  the  community  at  large,  silences  the  opposition  ol 
all  aspirants  to  place  and  favor,  and  secures  their  active  co-opera 
tion  in  the  perpetuity  of  the  nefarious  system,  hoping  to  re 
ceive  place  as  their  reward. 

But  the  other  army  of  bank  officers,  presidents,  cashiers,  tell 
ers,  clerks,  runners,  directors,  &c.,  &c.,  with  the  oligarchy  of 
bondholders,  are  an  active,  organized  force  engaged  in  the  plan 
ning,  scheming  and  execution  of  every  conceivable  deception  and 
crime  necessary  to  success. 

The  enormous  sum,  of  which  the  people  are  annually  robbed, 
defies  all  powers  and  departments  of  Government.  Legislation 
is  under  its  influence.  Poor,  miserable  mendicants  are  elected 
to  Congress  to  represent  their  people.  This  is  applied  in  their 
purchase.  They  come  home  independent,  live  in  magnificence, 
and  forget  their  constituencies.  Just  in  this  manner  has  money 
bought  up  the  unfaithful,  from  Epialtes  at  Thermopylaa  who 
betrayed  Leonidas,  down  to  Benedict  Arnold  who  betrayed 
Washington. 

The  judiciary  is  in  like  manner  the  tool  of  capital.  The  poor 
are  afraid,  because  in  danger  of  these  tyrants,  bought  and  bribed 
in  advance.  Their  suits  against  banks,  bondholders  or  green 
backs,  are  decided  before  the  pleadings  are  made  out.  Consti 
tutions,  laws,  or  long  established  judicial  decisions,  areas  dust  in 
the  balances  when  weighed  with  the  moneys  at  the  command  of 


3'J(5  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

the  funding  system.  And  when  incorruptible  integrity  resists 
these  encroachments,  ready-made  impeachments  remove  the 
judges  from  their  places. 

Even  the  Executive  of  a  great  people  cringes  before  this  om- 
nific  power,  and  after  surrendering  the  dignity  of  his  office,  and 
shrinking  from  the  prompt  execution  of  the  Constitution  and 
maintenance  of  the  country,  buys  the  poor  privilege  of  filling  an 
office  robbed  of  its  glory,  sitting  in  a  chair  divested  of  its  au 
thority,  representing  a  department  absorbed  by  usurpation  —  by 
bartering  and  doling  out  these  multitudes  of  offices  as  a  quid  pro 
quo  for  the  continuance  of  his  scandalized  place  without  impeach 
ment.  This  subornation  is  carried  into  conventions  of  all  par 
ties  everywhere.  You  will  see  bankers,  brokers,  usurers,  extor 
tioners,  shavers,  street  corner  loaners,  either  by  themselves  or 
through  their  supple  tools,  at  every  public  gathering,  presiding, 
making  motions,  offering  resolutions,  drumming  up  votes,  cho 
king  off  opposition,  and  strangling  fair  debate. 

The  money  of  the  funding  system  is  employed  in  bribing  and 
corrupting  the  metropolitan  pulpit,  and  dribbling  out  meagre 
fees  to  the  rural  clergy,  who  engage  in  organizing  their  churches 
into  auxiliary  political  parties  in  support  of  the  capital  that  em 
ploys  them. 

The  Freedmen's  Bureau  costs  the  United  States  nearly  a  quar 
ter  of  a  hundred  million  of  dollars  in  actual  cash,  besides  the 
loss  of  time,  vagrancy,  crime,  degradation  and  anarchy,  which 
are  unsettling  the  foundations  of  Southern  society,  and  destroy 
ing  the  sources  and  avenues  of  the  general  wealth  of  the  coun 
try.  Yet  this  Bureau  is  the  legitimate  child  of  the  funding  sys 
tem,  and  spends  the  annual  appropriations  in  schisms,  in  churches, 
in  the  employment  and  bribery  for  political  purposes,  of  all  the 
convertible  elements  of  the  Southern  States,  using  the  brute 
force  of  armies  to  murder  and  subjugate  those  who  can  be  neither 
suborned  by  actual  bribes  or  bought  by  position.  The  history 
of  lost  causes,  subjugated  peoples  and  conquered  territory,  is  the 
story  of  bribery.  Golden  gags,  silver  silences,  and  great  places 
bestowed  upon  sudden  conversions, —  such  is  our  history.  The 
list  of  names,  blacker  than  the  ink  which  refuses  to  record  them, 
would  make  a  biographical  dictionary  which  would  shame  the 
annals  of  the  infernal  regions. 


CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL,   WAR. 


327 


Yet  such  is  the  power  of  capital  and  the  aggregation  of  wealth, 
a-ainst  which,  like  half-grown  growling  children,  we  whine  and 
find  fault ;  and  then,  like  misanthropic  sages,  we  reason  and  ph 
osophize  to  a  people  who  laugh  at  our  complaints  and  never  read 
philosophy,  but  rally  to  strengthen  the  force  which,  with  accu 
mulating  power  and  accelerating  sweep,  levels  us  to  the  earth. 


328  CRIMES   OF    THE   CIVIL   WAR. 


CHAPTER    III. 

DEBT  is  SLAVERY. 

THE  debt  of  the  United  States  is  slavery,  which  becomes  more 
exacting  as  the  debt  increases  in  volume. 

This  debt  has  all  the  attributes  of  national  and  personal  sla 
very,  and  fixes  itself  alike  on  the  realty  and  personalty  of  the 
country. 

IT  MORTGAGES   OUR  REAL   ESTATE. 

Salmon  P.  Chase  did  not  hesitate  to  publish  to  the  world 
through  his  factotum,  Cooke,  that  the  debt  was  a  "  first  mort 
gage"  upon  all  of  the  property  of  the  United  States. 

This  affects  the  title  of  the  lands  and  leaves  every  man  but  a 
tenant  upon  his  own  property,  who  may  be  ousted  by  the  mort 
gagee  upon  the  first  failure  to  meet  the  appointed  instalment 
assessed  in  taxes.  The  mortgagee  is  pursuing  the  same  oppres 
sive  and  delusive  course  that  is  always  pursued  by  every  other 
mortgagee,  with  the  intent  to  absorb  the  mortgager. 

Seeing  that  the  land  will  always  remain  to  be  seized  for  the 
debt  after  every  thing  else  fails,  the  mortgager  first  absorbs  the 
personal  property  of  his  victim,  then  executes  his  land  and  holds 
both  the  realty  and  personalty  in  forfeiture  of  payment. 

Our  creditor  commences  on  food,  raiment  and  medicines,  which 
we  must  have  if  we  live  at  all  by  tariffs,  and  takes  at  least  one 
half  before  we  are  allowed  to  reduce  them  to  possession.  This 
strikes  every  body. 

Then  he  continues,  by  exacting  stamps  of  every  soul  that  can 
make  a  contract,  pay  a  debt,  or  take  a  receipt ;  this  includes  all 
of  the  very  poorest  laborers. 

Then  he  exacts  an  income  tax  upon  every  man  who  can  make 
a  thousand  dollars  per  annum ;  this  is  to  strike  the  young  and 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAK.  329 

thrifty  classes,  just  entering  upon  active  life,  oftentimes  with 
parents  and  invalid  relatives  to  support.  From  him  five  per  cent, 
is  exacted.  Slight  taxes  are  imposed  upon  gross  amusements,  all 
to  feed  the  greater  vices  of  life. 

Just  here  the  tax  list  ends,  as  it  reaches  the  mortgager,  the 
bondholder  who  owns  the  mortgage  remainder  of  the  real  estate, 
and  receives  the  tax  lists,  stamp  duties,  excise  and  tariffs,  to  pay- 
up  the  interests  accruing  upon  the  mortgage  notes. 

This  gentleman  is  our  master,  who  has  so  long  reveled  in 
wealth  that  he  does  not  know  his  own  slaves  when  he  meets  them 
abroad,  and  has  not  for  them  that  affection  which  association, 
responsibility  and  interest  give  to  the  ordinary  master.  These 
are  our  untitled  nobility.  They  are  destitute  of  employment, 
indeed,  they  need  no  employment,  every  man  who  wields  a  plow, 
spade,  anvil,  loom  or  machinery  of  any  kind,  is  his  servant. 
Every  woman  who  superintends  kitchen,  garden,  or  boarding- 
house,  hands  over  to  the  bondholder  all  her  surplus  earnings 
after  making  daily  tributes  upon  the  necessaries  of  life,  enjoying 
no  luxuries  for  herself.  The  bondholder  sits  like  a  blind  beggar 
by  the  way-side,  shuts  his  eyes,  extends  his  hands  and  cries  of 
each  one  passing,  in  his  piteous  tones,  "  can't  you  give  a  poor 
man  a  penny."  Lamartine,  Kossuth,  O'Connell  and  all  the  re 
nowned  beggars,  public  and  private,  of  modern  times,  in  present 
ing  the  wants,  claims  and  necessities  of  themselves,  or  the  men 
dicants  whom  they  represent,  are  not  to  be  compared  with  these 
indigent,  honest,  disinterested,  patriotic,  nay,  more, — philan 
thropic  bondholders. 

The  tariff  upon  food,  raiment,  medicines,  and  all  that  we  ne 
cessarily  use,  is  a  system  of  allowance  as  exact  but  more  stinted, 
than  has  ever  been  imposed  upon  any  laboring  slaves,  and  when 
labor  itself  gives  out,  the  laborer  no  longer  of  service  to  his  mas 
ter,  is  carted  to  the  alms  house,  where  his  allowance  and  helpless 
ness  are  complete. 

Like  every  other  system  of  slavery,  the  law-making  power  is 
in  the  hands  of  the  master.  The  laboring  masses  are  allowed  to 
vote,  but  if  he  is  a  tenant,  the  landlord  controls  his  vote  or  ousts 
him.  If  he  is  a  laborer,  the  employer  follows  him  to  the  polls, 
examines  his  ticket,  puts  a  spy  upon  his  track,  and  dismisses  him 
for  an -attempt  to  vote  against  his  will. 


330  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

If  he  is  an  operative,  the  manufacturer  notifies  him  that  all 
the  hands  are  expected  to  vote  the  ticket  of  the  proprietor,  upon 
penalty  of  loss  of  employment. 

If  he  is  a  house  or  body  servant,  he  is  disposed  of  in  a  more 
summary  manner. 

The  bank  holds  the  same  rod  in  a  quiet  way  over  its  debtors, 
endorsers  and  dependencies,  who  are  expected  to  sustain  the  power 
that  sustains  them.  The  control  is  as  complete  over  the  polls  as 
ever  was  held  by  Spartan  over  helot,  by  Jew  over  bondman,  by 
Russian  over  serf,  by  master  over  slave. 

The  footprints  of  the  master  precedes  the  slave  into  legisla 
tive  halls,  where  he  assumes  the  arrogant  airs  and  commands  in 
the  same  authoritative  tones.  Here  the  people's  servants  are 
bought  with  their  own  money,  to  betray  their  sacred  trust, 
and  add  a  new  thread  to  the  screw  to  press  them  down,  or  remove 
a  link  to  shorten  the  chain  which  will  bind  them  more  closely  to 
the  car-wheel  of  oppression. 

In  the  court,  the  Judge  is  overawed  with  social  proscription  or 
sweetened  with  presents  which  could  not  be  taken  by  an  honest 
judiciary,  or  be  given  in  evidence  as  bribes. 

Like  courts,  like  juries,  misdirected  by  judges  and  overawed 
or  corrupted  by  capital,  or  failing  in  this,  attorneys  are  bought 
up,  witnesses  are  intimidated  or  corrupted,  until  the  slave  suitor 
gladly  abandons  his  claim  and  leaves  the  court  in  disgust.  The 
failure  of  one  discourages  the  rest,  and  capital  as  thoroughly 
subdues  the  contestant,  as  the  master  would  subjugate  his  slave  by 
the  bludgeon  or  cat  'o  nine  tails. 

Such  is  the  multiform  slavery  of  Americans  by  this  debt,  that 
every  element  of  servitude  has  been  transferred  from  the  worst 
European  governments  to  our  American  system. 

The  Austrian  and  Prussian,  flying  from  Provost  Marshals, 
military  government,  arbitrary  power  and  oppressive  taxation, 
to  preserve  the  credit  of  the  reigning  tyrant,  comes  to  America 
to  be  greeted  by  all  the  odious  appendages  from  which  he  has  fled 
in  Europe. 

The  Irishman  flies  to  escape  a  government  made  up  of  spies, 
adventurers  and  domestic  enemies,  to  see  the  same  style  of 
eminent  revived  in  the  United  States. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  331 

Military  establishments  to  suppress  free  enquiry,  are  the  accom 
paniment  of  this  style  of  government,  which  are  always  neces 
sary  to  collect  taxes  and  transfer  the  lands  when  the  mortgages 
are  foreclosed  to  secure  the  payment  of  taxes. 

Is  this  not  slavery,  or  is  it  robbery,  which  takes  your  labor  be 
fore  it  has  been  reduced  to  money,  by  levying  taxes  which  must 
be  deducted  from  your  crops,  in  tariifs  which  must  be  paid  in 
the  purchase  of  your  food  and  raiment?  What  is  taxation  without 
an  equivalent,  but  rents?  What  are  tariffs  but  subsidies,  and 
what  is  slavery  but  the  exactions  of  tariffs  and  taxes,  which  con 
sume  your  labor  and  the  time  employed  ?  What  is  transmitted 
debt  but  transmitted  slavery,  in  its  most  deceitful  form,  against 
which  philosophers  have  denounced  as  cruel  and  unjust;  for  the 
relief  of  which  genius  has  no  invention  and  industry  no  power  ? 

To  free  the  country  of  these  tariffs  and  relieve  it  of  this  taxa 
tion,  and  emancipate  ourselves  from  the  crushing  weight  of  this 
exhausting  and  exhaustless  slavery,  is  the  primary  and  over 
shadowing  necessity  of  our  political  and  social  existence. 


332  CRIMES  OP  THE   CIVIL    WAR, 


CHAPTER  IV. 

BONDHOLDERS  AND  BONDMEN. 


THE  funding  system  has  introduced  a  privileged,  governing 
class  into  the  country,  who  are  exempt  like  the  French  aristoc- 


„ /,  from  taxation.     They  are  known  by  the  euphonious  title 
of  bondholders,  with   their  corresponding  peasants,  the  bond- 


racy 
of  I 
men. 


THE  BONDHOLDER  WITH  HIS  DEPENDANTS,  THE  BONDMEN. 

The  bondholder  is  a  gentleman  without  business.  He  needs 
no  business.  His  fortune  is  secure  beyond  peradventure.  He 
has  no  risk  of  flood  or  fire,  of  rise  or  fall  in  the  market.  He 
has  a  first  mortgage  upon  all  of  the  property  of  the  United 
States,  and  you  are  the  mortgagees.  Fire  consumes  cities  and 
lays  waste  plantations ;  whole  communities  are  impoverished. 
The  bondholder  sits  indifferently  smoking  his  pipe,  and  with 
dignified  nonchalance,  remarks,  "  true,  the  great  city  is  burned 
down,  but  I  hold  a  security  upon  the  grounds  upon  which  it 
was  built,  which  secures  me!"  Floods  sweep  away  mills,  and 
devastate  plantations,  and  send  out  the  ruined  planters  as  beggars 
in  the  land,  but  the  bondholder  is  secure ;  he  has  a  mortgage  on  the 
water  power  when  the  mills  are  gone,  upon  the  lands  when  the  fen 
ces  have  floated  to  the  Gulf.  "When  the  merchantman  plows  the 
ocean  to  bring  wealth  from  other  lands,  leaves  his  money  to  pay 
for  his  outward-bound  cargo,  to  be  taxed  like  other  moneys,  and 
sinks  his  home-bound  cargo  in  the  perils  of  the  sea,  the  bondholder 
consoles  himself  that  he  has  lost  nothing,  that  his  interest  recedes 
nothing  in  amount,  and  his  bonds  depreciate  nothing  in  value. 
Even  the  speculator,  the  cold-blooded,  heartless  speculator,  mis 
taking  his  chances  in  the  monopolization  of  the  food  and  raiment 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAU.  333 

of  the  poor,  loses  his  fortune  in  the  sudden  changes  of  the  market, 
and  fails,  the  bondholder  breaks  out  in  a  hollow,  hoarse  laugh, 
and  exclaims,  "  markets  and  all  belong  to  me.  No  difference 
who  starves  or  who  freezes.  I  get  my  interest  and  these  people 
must  pay  their  taxes." 

It' is  conceded  everywhere  that  the  aristocracy  of  Great  Britain, 
in  the  exercise  of  power,  deportment,  and  sense  of  justice,  are 
eminently  above  the  monied  oligarchy,  from  which  they  fly  as 
before  the  pestilence. 

The  bondholder  sends  his  children  to  school,  but  the  property- 
holder  pays  his  taxes.  He  drives  his  magnificent  carriage  over 
the  roads  laden  with  his  privileged  family,  but  the  man  who 
drives  the  dray,  the  two-horse  wagon,  and  plows  the  land,  pays 
the  tax.  He  charters  his  conveyance  and  pays  no  tax.  Mag 
nificent  public  edifices  are  reared  for  public  schools.  He  sends 
his  children  to  school,  but  from  his  funded  public  stock,  pays  no 
taxes.  The  thief  who  steals  his  bonds  is  arraigned  at  the  public 
expense,  but  the  bondholder  contributes  nothing  to  the  payment 
of  the  expenses  consequent. 

No  such  monied  aristocracy  now  exists  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
—  none  such  ever  existed  any  where  else  before.  The  Koth- 
childs  of  Europe,  the  Astors  of  America,  the  bankers,  brokers, 
railroad,  steamship,  telegraph  and  great  real  estate  owners  of  the 
world,  have  to  run  their  risks  of  trade  and  perils  of  enterprize. 
Counties  must  keep  up  their  organization,  but  he  contributes 
nothing  toward  the  payment  of  expenses.  State  Governments 
must  exist  by  levies  upon  the  labors  of  the  people,  but  the  bond 
holder  contributes  nothing.  The  bondholder  is  a  gentleman 
dressed  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  fares  sumptuously  every 
day.  Each  returning  half  year  brings  his  semi-annual  income. 
The  bondmen  arc  a  very  different  class  of  people,  who  are  holden 
in  their  property,  in  their  business,  in  their  persons,  in  the  bread 
they  eat,  in  the  clothes  they  wear,  in  the  fuel  they  consume,  in 
the  books  they  read,  in  the  light  they  burn,  in  the  houses  they 
live  in,  and  the  beds  they  lie  on,  for  the  payment  of  the  annually 
accruing  interest,  on  the  debt  due  these  bondholders.  The  bond 
men  pay  an  average  of  at  least  one  hundred  per  cent.,  from  re 
tailers7  profits ;  and  the  stamps,  duties  and  commissions  which 


334  CRIMES  OF   THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

follow  the  raw  material  from  the  cotton  field  to  the  sewing  ma- 

*  o 

chine,  from  the  wool  on  the  back  of  the  sheep  to  the  retailers7 
counter,  on  everything  they  wear,  in  tariffs,  for  the  double  pur 
pose  of  paying  the  interest  on  these  bonds,  and  protecting  New 
England  manufacturers  in  extorting  double  price  for  their  goods. 
He  pays  his  landlord's  income  tax  upon  the  rent  of  his  houses, 
and  lias  the  stamp  and  all  other  duties,  apparently  paid  by  the 
capitalist,  added  to  the  first  cost  of  every  commodity,  ate,  drank 
and  worn,  by  himself  and  family.  The  landlord  adds  it  to  his 
rent ;  the  butcher  adds  it  to  his  meat  bill ;  the  baker  adds  it  to 
his  loaf;  the  wood  and  coal  merchant  adds  it  to  the  price  of  his 
fuel ;  the  druggist  adds  it  to  his  medicines ;  the  lawyer,  physi 
cian,  school-master  and  minister,  add  it  to  their  fee  bill ;  the  rail 
road,  steamboat  and  coachman  add  it  to  your  fare;  the  merchant 
adds  it  to  your  shroud ;  the  sexton  adds  it  to  the  price  of  your 
grave ;  the  monument-builder  charges  it  upon  your  tombstone, 
and  then,  with  retrospective  grasp,  this  system  of  monstrous  tax 
ation  covers  the  margin  of  your  will  with  stamps,  and  transmits 
its  odious  incumbrances  and  curses  to  your  children  as  an  inheri 
tance  forever.  As  the  towering  pyramid,  whose  lofty  spire  is  raised 
above  the  clouds  to  bask  in  eternal  sunlight,  rests  upon  the  rough 
granite  that  is  hidden  in  the  sands,  so  these  bondholders,  who 
have  the  first  mortgage  upon  the  property  of  the  United  States, 
elevated  far  above  responsibility  to  revenue  laws,  rest  their  for 
tunes  upon  the  strong,  laboring  masses,  who  produce  the  wealth 
of  the  country,  and  are  consumed  in  the  taxes,  rents,  extortions 
and  usury  of  landlords,  manufacturers,  tax-gatherers  and  excise 
men,  who  are  mere  middlemen  to  hand  over  the  products  of  labor 
from  the  industry  of  the  country  to  the  bondholders.  This  is 
the  way  that  the  abundance  of  paper  money  finds  its  way  from 
the  field  and  shop  of  the  producer,  into  the  coffer  and  treasury  of 
the  consumer.  This  is  the  modus  operandi  of  the  passage  of  the 
products  of  Western  labor  into  the  hands  of  Eastern  monopolies 
-the  answer  to  the  query  why  it  is,  in  the  incredible  profusion 
of  a  paper  currency,  the  Western  people  are  pressed  for  money, 
and  seeking  relief  in  vain.  The  bondholders  are  placing  the 
people  in  very  much  the  same  condition  with  the  old  plantation 
^  slave."  As  the  "slaves"  had  their  holidays  to  spend  their 


CHIMES  OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK.  335 

annual  earnings  in  social  glee,  the  Western  tax-payers  have  a 
fortnight  of  plenty  at  the  sales  of  the  pork  and  wool  crops,  after 
which  they  are  kept  upon  a  perpetual  strain,  seeking  credit  and 
fighting  off  debts  that  devour  them  with  interests  and  obstruct 
their  business. 

Never  before  has  a  class  distinction  been  made  so  obnoxious 
and  disgusting.  Without  intelligence,  without  culture,  without 
hospitality,  without  honor,  an  ignorant,  pretentious,  moneyed 
aristocracy  are  supported,  by  the  toil  of  the  poor,  and  none  so 
poor  as  not  to  contribute  at  least  one-half  of  their  subsistence  to 
pay  these  bondholders.  There  is  no  escape  from  this  drag-net  of 
despotism,  except  in  dispensing  with  food,  raiment,  fire  and  shel 
ter.  Death  is  your  only  hope  of  relief,  and  the  grave  the  only 
avenue  to  the  house  of  refuge  and  temple  of  security  against  the 
voracious  jaws  of  this  infernal  system.  This  tribute  laid  upon 
property,  this  blackmail  levied  upon  poverty,  this  punishment 
inflicted  upon  industry,  this  outrage  upon  justice,  equality  and 
God,  this  premium  oifered  to  stock-gambling,  this  subsidy  obse 
quiously  given  to  capital,  this  reward  bestowed  upon  idleness, 
this  oligarchy  based  upon  human  suffering  and  human  corrup 
tion,  this  grand  gulf  yawning  between  the  West  and  the  East, 
this  impassible  mountain  between  capital  and  labor,  this  startling 
universal  robbery  is  paid  over  from  log  cabins  to  brown-stone 
fronts,  from  the  cellar  and  garret  to  suburban  mansions,  from  the 
toil-worn  laborer,  who  drives  the  dray  and  two-horse  wagon,  to 
the  gentleman  who  rides  in  his  carriage,  four  horses,  postillions 
and  footmen,  from  plain  plank  floors  to  Brussels  carpets,  from 
lindsey-woolsey  to  cashmere  and  silks;  spinning-wheels  hand  it 
over  to  pianos,  and  horny  hands  to  silk  gloves.  Each  new  year  a 
new  middle-man  becomes  necessary  to  your  existence.  In  all 
the  departments  of  manufacture,  and  business,  and  trade,  the  rich 
will  grow  richer,  the  poor  will  grow  poorer,  until  they  sink  be 
neath  the  crushing  weight  of  tariffs,  taxes,  imposts  and  stamp 
duties.  Such  a  system  of  taxation — which  exempts  the  rich 
and  oppresses  the  poor,  which  fosters  capital  and  oppresses  labor, 
has  never  been  imposed  upon  any  other  people  under  heaven. 
To  continue  this  system  for  twenty  years,  without  mitigation, 
would  produce  rebellion  in  Eussia,  Austria,  Turkey,  or  China. 


336  CHIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAK. 

For  two  years,  the  blind  leading  the  blind,  have  been  groping  in 
the  dark  for  imaginary  causes  for  the  scarcity  of  money;  the  high 
prices,  the  independence  of  the  rich,  the  precarious  condition  of 
the  poor,  and  the  general  suffering  of  all.  The  shallowest  reas 
ons  have  been  given,  the  most  ridiculous  causes  have  been 
charged,  and  the  most  absurd  remedies  have  been  proposed  for 
the  relief  of  the  unhealthy  and  dangerous  condition  of  public 
affairs.  The  causes  of  our  increasing  poverty  are  manifest  to 
every  political  economist,  and  are  fully  analyzed  above. 

This  funded  system  is  replete  with  fraud  and  oppression  of 
every  character.  It  supports  idle  men  in  their  idleness  and 
makes  them  respectable  and  powerful,  because  they  are  idle.  "  Like 
the  lilies  of  the  valley,  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin ;  yet 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these."  These 
idle  gentlemen  crowd  the  watering-places  in  the  summer  season 
to  taunt  the  cholera  in  their  security.  In  the  winter,  they  retire 
to  first-class  hotels,  and  dine,  and  sup,  and  breakfast  on  costly 
dishes,  and  make  the  tour  of  Europe,  and  visit  the  Holy  Land, 
and  make  extravagant  purchases  because  they  have  not  where 
withal  to  bestow  their  riches.  The  days  are  too  long  and  the 
nights  are  too  inconvenient  to  afford  their  wonted  sleep.  Opera 
houses,  theatres  and  fashionable  resorts,  absorb  their  time;  gouts, 
dyspepsia  and  fashionable  diseases,  close  up  their  career  to  the 
general  satisfaction  of  mankind. 

The  government  has  made  it  their  interest  to  be  idle ;  any  in 
vestment  of  their  capital  would  endanger  their  comparative  pros 
perity.  The  government  has  done  much  more  for  them  than 
they  could  possibly  do  for  themselves.  If  these  idlers  had  placed 
the  even  dollar  against  the  even  dollar,  the  rates  of  interest  al- 
loAved  on  the  bonds  would  forbid  the  temerity  of  further  adven 
ture  as  unnecessary  and  reckless ;  but  the  investment  of  one  dol 
lar  to  secure  three,  with  the  interest  on  three  dollars  is  the  very 
highest  rate  of  untaxed  interest  ever  known  from  governments  to 
creditors.  The  government  offers  to  these  men  a  premium  for 
their  idleness,  which  they  accept  and  enjoy. 

But  the  iniquity  of  the  idleness  of  the  bondholders  is  augmen 
ted  by  the  idleness  of  the  capital  which  they  have  locked  up  in 
their  coffers,  which  produces  nothing,  contributes  to  the  produc- 


CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAE.  337 

tion  of  nothing,  encourages  the  production  of  nothing.  It 
neither  builds  cities,  extends  railroads,  or  improves  farms. 

If  cities  are  built,  the  extravagant  rates  of  interest  must  con 
sume  the  profits  of  the  labor  employed,  and  devour  the  capital 
invested ;  and  by  the  cunning  jugglery  of  the  capitalist,  who 
manipulates  the  money  of  the  idle  men,  issued  in  bank  notes,  se 
cured  upon  these  idle  bonds,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  after  the 
building  is  ate  up  by  usury  and  extortion,  the  genius  of  the 
architect,  the  labor  of  the  mechanic  and  the  enterprise  of  the 
builder,  fall  a  prey  to  the  royal  power  of  the  bondholder,  who 
takes  possession  of  his  game  with  the  same  confidence  and  non 
chalance  of  the  old  trapper  who  has  caught  his  new  game  in  the 
old  trap,  and  would  have  been  disappointed,  if  it  had  not  fallen 
an  easy  prey  to  his  bait. 

If  railroads  are  built,  it  is  upon  some  such  fraudulent  scheme 
as  inveigles  whole  communities  to  subscribe  vast  amounts  of 
money  to  be  given  in  mortgage  to  these  idlers,  usurers  and  ex 
tortioners,  and  when  they  are  placed  in  running  order,  at  the 
merest  nominal  sum  transferred  to  the  mortgagee,  as  an  inheri 
tance,  to  endure  to  all  time,  transmitted  to  their  children  and 
children's  children,  who  will  live  at  ease  upon  the  fare  paid  by 
the  children  of  those  who  built  the  road,  and  were  robbed  of  its 
income  and  control. 

If  farms  are  improved,  the  heavy  rate  of  interest  consumes 
the  value  of  the  improvement  and  trenches  upon  the  principal, 
until  the  sunburnt  pioneer  grows  weary  of  the  vexation,  and 
gladly  gives  up  farm  and  improvement,  and  makes  a  new  trial 
on  the  frontier  for  a  home  and  burial-place. 

This  funded  system  is  the  lion  in  the  lair,  giving  out  his  illness 
that  all  of  the  beasts  of  the  forest  may  offer  him  their  condo 
lence;  but  the  tracks  of  the  visitors  all  point  one  way;  none  ever 
return. 

These  idle  men  not  only  hold  in  reserve  their  idle  capital  from 
the  business  of  the  country,  but  this  capital  eats,  though  it  works 
not. 

The  cattle,  and  swine,  and  horses,  and  sheep,  work  and  feed 
them.  The  fields  of  grain,  and  mines  of  ore,  and  muscles  of  the 
million,  are  their  servants.  The  orchard,  and  vine,  and  bushes, 
22 


338  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

yield  their  yearly  fruits  to  add  new  revenues  to  the  monster, 
whose  open  mouth  is  annually  closed  upon  everything  which  may 
be  measured  by  value. 

These  fund-men  command  labor  to  feed,  clothe  and  support 
them.  Like  the  sloth,  they  coil  themselves  up  and  fill  them 
selves  with  the  fruits  gathered  by  the  hands  of  others,  or  like 
that  other  aristocratic  gentleman,  the  swine,  live  only  to  enjoy 
the  sublime  pleasures  of  life,  to  eat;  drink,  and  sleep,  without 
labor. 


CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  339 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  FUNDING  SYSTEM  DESTROYS  A  STABLE  CURRENCY. 

THE  existence  of  the  funding  system  has  given  as  its  first  fruits, 
the  entire  destruction  of  money ;  and  concentrates  even  paper 
money  in  the  centres  and  drains  it  from  the  extremities  of  trade. 

A  STARTLING  FACT  —  NO  SPECIE  IN  CIRCULATION. 

There  cannot  be  a  more  startling  fact  presented  to  any  people 
than  this,  that  in  the  richest  gold  country  upon  earth,  there  is 
not  one  gold  dollar  in  ordinary  circulation,  notwithstanding 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  has  made  gold  and  silver 
the  only  legal  tender  for  the  payment  of  debts.  The  constitu 
tional  question  of  banking  need  not  be  argued ;  it  is  sufficient  to 
state  the  Constitution  in  its  own  language  by  prohibition  and 
authority. 

Its  prohibition,  "  No  State  shall  *  *  *  coin  money,  emit 
bills  of  credit,  (or)  make  anything  but  gold  and  silver  coin  a 
tender  in  payment  of  debts." — Art.  II.,  Sec.  10. 

It  authorizes  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  "to  coin  money, 
regulate  the  value  thereof,  and  of  foreign  coin,  and  fix  the  stand 
ards  of  weights  and  measures ;  to  provide  for  the  punishment  of 
counterfeiting  the  securities  and  current  coin  of  the  United 
States."—  Art.  /.,  See.  8. 

These  brief,  yet  comprehensive  paragraphs  embody  all  that  is 
contained  in  the  Constitution,  from  which  are  deduced  these 
manifest  truths : 

1st.  To  coin  money  does  not  imply  the  right  to  establish 
banks. 

2d.  Promises  to  pay  by  any  person  or  corporation,  cannot  by 
any  construction  of  law  be  metamorphosed  into  money.  Promi 
ses  to  pay  are  not  money,  they  are  credits. 


340  CRIMES   QF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

Money  is  the  evidence  of  wealth,  held  to  represent  values. 
Credit  is  the  evidence  of  poverty,  held  to  represent  indebtedness. 
Money  has  a  positive  value,  fixed  and  stamped  upon  it  by  law, 
which,  when  used  in  commerce,  commands  its  specific  value; 
notes  or  credits  are  in  themselves,  nothing  but  the  promises  de 
pendent  upon  the  solvency  or  insolvency  of  others  for  their 
value.  Money  is  the  standard  value  of  commerce,  by  which  it 
is  measured  and  controlled  ;  credit  is  a  beggar  upon  commerce  for 
time  to  pay  for  goods  taken  up  in  advance  of  payment.  Credit 
is  just  as  much  money  as  the  shadow  of  a  house  is  a  house  —  its 
picture,  nothing  more.  Money  is  payment  beyond  which  no  in 
quiry  is  made;  credit  is  the  promise  of  money,  without  the  pay 
ment  of  which  it  is  entirely  worthless.  By  the  common  consent 
of  mankind,  money,  which  is  an  imperishable  certificate  of  value, 
made  of  gold  and  silver,  is  the  accredited  agent  and  vehicle  of 
commerce  among  all  the  civilized  nations  of  the  earth.  Paper 
money  has  a  limited  arena  of  circulation,  with  varying  value, 
having  no  value  except  that  which  may  attach  to  the  character 
of  the  payer.  Paper  money  is  a  promise  to  pay  on  demand ;  if 
it  is  not  to  be  paid  on  demand,  it  may  never  be  paid ;  if  never 
paid,  it  is  worthless.  Money  is  perpetually  valuable.  Money  is 
coined.  Bank  notes  are  printed ;  under  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  they  cannot  be  made  money.  But  "  National 
Bank  notes  "  are  bills  of  credit  for  which  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  has  no  power  to  make  itself  responsible.  Bank 
notes  are  printed  promises  of  the  bill  usurer  and  extortioner,  to 
pay  what  everybody  in  America  knows  that  they  can't  pay,  won't 
pay,  and  don't  intend  to  pay,  and  only  promise  to  pay  to  give 
them  character  to  rob,  cheat  and  overreach  the  people  of  the 
country,  under  pretext  of  furnishing  them  with  money  which 
they  do  not  furnish  them,  which  they  cannot  furnish  them,  be 
cause  they  have  no  money  to  pay  their  notes,  and  after  years  of 
smooth  swindling,  will  break  up  in  a  general  robbery.  This 
National  Bank  money  gives  no  security  for  its  payment,  other 
than  promises  to  pay.  It  is  the  reflected  shadow  of  a  shadow. 
But  why  this  false  pretence  of  money  to  carry  on  the  business  of 
a  great  country,  whose  commerce  is  commensurate  with  the  hai<- 
itable  globe  ? 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  341 

1.  It  is  not  because  we  have  no  gold  or  silver.     No  country 
upon  the  earth  is  so  rich  in  the  precious  metals  as  ours. 

2.  Because  we  use  a  paper  money  which  no  other  people  will 
use,  our  gold  and  silver  are  drained  from  us  to  foreign  lands, 
and  worthless  paper,  monstrous  frauds  and  visionary  prices,  rule 
the  markets  of  the  country.     The  result  is  manifest,  that  there  is 
no  gold  left  in  the  country. 

3.  The  banks  don't  need  gold  or  silver  for  their  business.  One 
promise  to  pay  redeems  another  promise  to  pay  ad  infmitum ; 
just  as  the  old  tavern-keeper  and  his  wife  drank  up  a  barrel  of 
whiskey  on  a  two-pence  which  passed  from  one  to  the  other 
as  they  alternately  played  the  landlord  and  customer,  and  had 
but  the  two-pence  left  for  the  liquor  drank.     This  condition  of 
the  banks  leaves  them  without  either  gold  or  silver  in  vaults ; 
—  indeed,  they  make  no  such  pretension. 

4.  But  whilst  the  country  is  drained  of  gold,  with  an  incredi 
ble  folly,  they  have  placed  it  in  the  hands  of  unscrupulous  vil 
lains,  who  have  mortgaged  the  entire  available  property  of  the 
country  to  bankers,  brokers,  usurers,  extortioners,  and  foreign 
Shy  locks,  to  pay  a  debt  which  is  drawing  a  double  interest, — 
interest  in  gold, —  to  be  paid  to  the  bankers  who  use  the  bonds  as 
a  pretext  for  banking,  and  then  interest  on  the  bank  notes  which 
are  borrowed  out  of  the   banks,  as  a  currency  for  the  people. 
Such  is  the  absolute  scarcity  of  the  precious  metals  in  the  coun 
try,  that  no  debts  are  paid  and  no  business  transacted  with  gold 
and  silver.     The  poor,  who  would   lay  up   money  for  old  age, 
have  to  make  heavy  sacrifices  to  get  gold,  or  those  who  buy  pro 
ducts  raised  in  other  climes,  or  who  would  visit  foreign  lands, 
have  to  enter  into  the  brokers'  merciless  jaws,  to  be  devoured  iu 
exchange  and  usury.     To  add  to  all  of  the  other  follies  in  a  sys 
tem  where  not  one  sensible  thing  has  been  done,  our  gold  wealth 
has  been  transferred  to  English  bankers  and  Chinese  miners. 

EXTRAORDINARY  CONDITION  OF  THINGS. 

Not  less  amazing  is  it  that  where  Congress  has  made  a  promise 
to  pay  a  legal  tender,  that  kind  of  money  is  becoming  so  scarce 
that  complaints  come  up  from  every  part  of  the  country  that 


342  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

money  is  tight,  and  business  is  embarrassed  and  lags  in  conse 
quence.  We  need  not  look  around  for  the  cause  of  this  state  of 
things.  The  Government  has  issued  an  immense  amount  of 
bonds,  which  have  fastened  upon  us  the  English  funding  system 
with  all  its  odious  features,  crimes  and  enormities,  draughts  upon 
our  productive  strength  sufficient  to  absorb  the  annual  labor  of 
the  country.  In  all  the  evil  devices  of  faro  bank  and  steamboat 
poker,  nothing  like  the  American  system  of  revenue  exists 
among  any  rational  people.  This  condition  of  things  challenges 
our  examination.  In  the  cities  of  New  York,  Boston,  Phila 
delphia,  and  the  East,  paper  money  exists  in  the  greatest  abun 
dance,  and  can  find  no  permanent  investment  in  business,  but 
seeks  it  in  bonds.  In  the  Western  States,  money  is  so  scarce 
that  there  is  not  enough  for  business,  the  payment  of  taxes  and 
the  improvement  of  the  country  ;  since  the  bounty-money  dis 
tributed  among  the  soldiers  has  been  exhausted.  This  disparity 
of  condition  between  the  two  sections  is  not  accidental,  but  is 
the  necessary  offspring  of  a  funding  system,  which  gives  the 
property  of  one  part  of  the  country  in  taxation  and  mortgage  to 
the  other.  By  this  process,  as  fast  as  the  people  of  the  agricul 
tural  districts  sell  their  products,  the  money  is  at  once  transfer 
red  to  the  tax-gatherer,  in  payment  of  taxes,  and  the  tax-gatherer 
hands  it  over  to  the  treasurer,  who  pays  it  out  to  the  bondholder 
in  liquidation  of  the  interest  on  his  bonds.  This  process  is  an 
nual  in  his  income  ;  it  is  perpetual  in  his  daily  expenses,  and 
universal  upon  all  that  he  consumes.  The  process  of  exhaustion 
has  been  going  imperceptibly  on  until  the  farms  are  stripped  of 
their  finest  herds,  and  the  agricultural  regions  are  sinking  under 
the  pressure. 

1st.  The  interest  on  the  public  debt  amounts  to  several  times 
the  sum  necessary  to  administer  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  with  economy. 

There  is  included  in  the  debt  the  gold-bearing  bonds,  the 
greenback-bearing  bonds,  the  compound  interest  treasury  notes, 
and  the  various  honest  claims,  which  have  been  long  due,  and  de 
ferred  claims,  which,  by  collusion  with  the  heads  of  departments, 
are  allowed.  To  all  this  you  must  add  :  — 

2d.  The  assessors,  collectors,  clerks,  overseers,  detectives  and 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  343 

other  detestable  appendages  of  arbitrary  power,  which  are  of 
themselves  a  consuming  army  of  cormorants,  eating  out  our  sub 
stance,  and  destroying  our  financial  resources  and  prosperity. 

As  an  additional  reserve  corps,  to  be  supported  by  the  people 
and  paid  for  extorting  from  them  in  the  exacting  usury  of  the 
bank,  we  may  add  to  the  list  of  vampires  who  suck  the  blood 
from  the  poor ;  bank  presidents,  cashiers,  tellers  and  clerks,  direc 
tors,  attorneys,  agents  and  lobby  members  employed  to  corrupt 
the  legislatures  of  the  country,  and  wrest  the  representative 
power  of  the  people  from  their  own  hands,  and  employ  it  for 
their  own  destruction  at  the  public  expense. 

3d.  The  bonds  pay  no  taxes,  and  saddle  the  payment  upon  the 
labor  and  land  of  the  country. 

After  this  manner  is  the  scarcity  of  paper  money  among  the 
people  reduced :  — 

1.  The  greenbacks,  which  draw  no  interest,  are  converted  into 
bonds  which  draw  interest.     The  result  is,  that  the  conversion 
of  every  million  of  dollars  makes  just  that  much  more  to  pay, 
and  that  much  less  to  pay  it  in. 

2.  As  the  amount  of  greenbacks  is  lessened,  and  the  amount 
of  bonds  is  increased,  the  value  of  the  interest  and  bond  is  each 
increased,  and  the  amount  of  debt  in  that  ratio  becomes  greater, 
and  by  exacting  gold  to  pay  the  bonds,  the  debt  would  be  nearly 
triple  the  amount  of  itself,  as  contracted  in  greenbacks.     The 
bondholders  and  bankers  combine  to  make  greenbacks  scarce,  to 
make  bonds  valuable.     Hence  the  scarcity  of  paper  money  amidst 
its  plenty. 


344  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE  FUNDING  SYSTEM  WILL  CONCENTRATE  THE  LANDED  ESTATES  OF  THE 

COUNTRY. 

THE  oligarchy  created  under  the  funding  system,  will  not  be 
content  with  gathering  the  fruits  of  the  soil  and  the  wages  of 
labor ;  merely  they  will  here,  as  in  all  the  other  countries  cursed 
with  this  system,  buy  up  manors,  estates,  and  whole  regions  of 
country,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  poor,  whom  they  are  engaged 
in  impoverishing. 

The  country  is  utterly,  hopelessly  bankrupt.  "We  owe  more 
than  we  are  worth,  and  spend  more  than  we  make.  That  is 
bankruptcy  itself  in  its  worst,  most  dangerous  and  wickedest 
form.  That  is  the  most  absolute  repudiation  which  cannot  be 
paid.  That  is  the  most  sickening  insolvency  which  approaches 
you  to  assure  you  that  it  would  gladly  pay  you  if  it  could,  but 
is  sorry  to  say  that  it  cannot.  He  has  not  the  means,  and  can 
not  control  them  to  pay  you.  This  is  our  condition  in  few  words. 
But  the  worst  is  not  yet  on  us,  but  is  slowly  approaching,  with 
the  heavy,  steady  tread  of  death.  Last  year  the  incomes  were 
not  as  heavy  as  they  were  the  year  before,  and  this  year  not  as 
heavy  as  they  were  last,  and  next  year  they  will  be  much  lighter 
still.  What  then  ?  It  is  intended  to  get  through  with  the  next 
Presidential  election,  and  carry  out  the  military  programme  laid 
down  by  the  present  Congress,  and  rule  the  people  by  force. 
Then  what  ?  They  must  levy  a  land  tax,  instead  of  an  income 
tax.  And  then  what?  They  will  let  the  land  go  to  sale,  and 
then  let  the  bondholders  buy  up  the  land  for  taxes,  and  pay  the 
purchase  money  with  coupons,  and  pay  the  taxes  next  year  with 
other  coupons,  and  let  the  owners  of  the  land  rent  and  be  ten 
ants  under  the  bondholder  who  buys  it  up.  The  land  tax  was 
first  laid  in  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  millions  of  acres 


CHIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAK.  345 

would  have  been  sold  and  placed  beyond  redemption,  but  the 
shrewd  capitalists  of  the  country  foresaw  that  the  war  would  be 
arrested  in  that  event.  The  direct  taxation  of  lands  would 
frighten  the  people,  which  would  defeat  the  purpose  of  mort 
gaging  the  whole  country  to  their  funding  system.  They  post 
poned  the  land  tax  until  the  coupons  would  accumulate  so 
as  to  buy  up  the  lands,  at  their  sales  for  taxes,  which  will 
give  the  bondholders  both  the  lands  and  bonds.  In  every  res 
pect,  this  land  scheme  resembles  the  workings  of  the  feudal  sys 
tem  which  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  are  attempting 
to  practically  engraft  upon  the  American  system.  This  is  pre 
cisely  the  way  that  the  whole  landed  estates  have  passed  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  masses  of  the  people  into  the  hands  of  the  land 
lords  of  Great  Britain  and  the  continent;  and  just  in  this  way  is 
it  contemplated  that  the  real  property  of  the  United  States  shall 
pass  out  of  the  hands  of  the  middle  classes  into  the  hands  of  the 
bondholders  in  this  country,  and  make  the  two  distinctive  classes, 
landlords  and  tenants,  absolute  here  as  they  are  in  Europe.  Al 
ready  immense  fortunes  are  transmitted  from  parents  to  children, 
to  continue  for  all  time ;  and  poverty  is,  in  like  manner,  trans 
mitted  to  the  poor,  who  inherit  nothing  but  the  taxes  imposed 
upon  their  parents. 

The  claptrap  of  negro-voting  is  only  to  reduce  the  poor  white 
people  down  to  the  level  of  the  negroes,  that  they  may  be  op 
pressed  without  complaining,  and  when  they  complain  that  they 
will  have  no  power  to  resist  —  and  here,  just  as  in  Europe,  make 
their  dependence  a  sure  guaranty  of  submission  to  the  lords  and 
task-masters.  There  is  in  the  United  States  no  intelligent  body 
of  the  people  who  believe  the  negro  the  equal  of  the  white  man  ; 
who  believe  the  negro  capable  of  self-government  in  partnership 
witli  the  white  man,  who  believe  that  the  negro  can  be  highly 
cultivated,  who  do  not  know  that  the  negro  has  never  governed 
himself,  that  civilization  yields  to  barbarism  and  Christianity  to 
heathenism,  wherever  the  experiment  is  enforced.  But  these 
men  would  surrender  the  whole  system  of  Christianity  and  civ 
ilization  to  gain  a  momentary  service  of  the  negro  at  the  polls, 
to  make  the  bonded  system  permanent  and  perpetual.  Such  are 
the  delusions  of  hope  and  the  corruptions  of  party  influence, 


346  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR. 

that  with  these  startling  strides  to  power  staring  them  in  the 
face,  they  are  unwilling  to  believe  the  warning  until  it  is  too  late 
to  relieve  their  danger.     When  told  that  their  lands  must  be 
held  for  the  payment  of  taxes,  and  finally  sold  to  pay  them,  they 
reply  :  "  But  we  will  not  bid  when  our  lands  are  put  up  to  sale." 
And  then  what?       That  is  just  what  the  bondholder  wants. 
When  you  won't  bid  on  the  land,  then  the  bondholder  will  bid 
on  it,  so  that  it  will  pass  out  of  your  hands  into  his  hands,  and 
there  remain.     "  But,"  says  my  Kepublican  farmer  friend,  "  we 
will  combine  and  prevent  them  bidding  off  our  land  at  the  tax 
sales."     Be  not  too  hasty.     These  land  sales  will  be  made  by  the 
United  States  Marshal  at  a  great  distance  from  the  homes  of  the 
poor  people,  who  can't  combine  against  them.     But  look  to  it. 
There  is  now  in  preparation  Paine's  military  bill,  which  will 
place  a  large  military  force  to  guard  the  demands  of  the  bond 
holder,  enforce  the  sales  of  the  Marshal,  and  drive  back  all  op 
position.    For,  remember,  this  work  commenced  with  the  sword, 
will  continue  with  the  sword  until  ended  by  the  sword.     But 
when  these  sales  take  place,  there  is  no  redemption  of  lands  for 
the  poor.      The  title  of  the  bondholder  will  be  complete.     It  is 
for  this  very  purpose  that  the  present  Congress  want  to  confiscate 
the  Southern  lands  to  divide  them  among  the  negroes ;  first,  to 
secure  their  votes  to  pass  oppressive  laws ;  and,  second,  to  secure 
negro  soldiers  to  keep  down  insurrection  among  the  poor  whites, 
when  the  impoverished  treasury  has  forced  their  lands  into  the 
market. 

So,  early  as  the  first  years  of  the  war,  the  entire  control  of  the 
lands  of  the  country  were  compassed  by  the  stock-gamblers,  and 
the  funding  system  amply  sufficient  to  swallow  everything,  was 
the  proper  mortgage  to  foreclose  and  conclude  them. 


CHIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL   WAK.  347 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  FUNDING  SYSTEM  CREATES  DISTRUST  BETWEEN  CAPITAL  AND  LABOR. 

SOCIETY  is  now  in  its  most  perplexing  condition — just  verg 
ing  upon  anarchy,  those  elements  that  nature  has  placed  in  har 
mony,  are  now  in  unnecessary  conflict  and  threaten  to  destroy 
each  other.  The  laboring  masses  are  weary  of  perpetually  toil 
ing  with  but  little  recreation,  like  cattle,  in  the  tread-mill.  They 
desire  shorter  periods  of  labor  and  longer  periods  of  rest,  recrea 
tion  and  instruction.  This  is  not  only  right,  but  it  is  eminently 
desirable.  Very  naturally  have  they  looked  to  the  amelioration 
of  their  own  condition,  and  quite  as  naturally  are  they  seeking 
the  means  and  time  for  the  support  and  instruction  of  their  fam 
ilies.  The  contractors,  of  course,  would  like  to  have  as  much 
work  done  as  they  can  get  for  the  amount  of  money  paid,  and 
shrewd  business  men  generally  calculate  these  things  with  exact 
ness,  and  no  legislative  interference  in  fixing  times  of  labor  ever 
can  remedy  evils  so  deeply  rooted  as  the  one  which  now  afflicts 
and  threatens  to  overwhelm  us. 

In  all  of  the  conflicts  of  labor  and  capital,  capital  gets  the 
better;  because  capital  strikes  quietly,  but  hurls  her  deadly  blows 
with  vehemence  unseen,  and  ten  to  one,  that  the  laborers  are  set 
to  quarreling  with  each  other,  whilst  capital  goes  on  eating  up 
their  substance. 

Somebody  has  struck  a  terrible  blow  at  the  laborer,  and  he  is 
staggering  under  it  and  reeling  upon  the  verge  of  ruin.  You 
can  see  it  manifest  in  the  high  rents  on  cheap  houses,  in  the  high 
rates  of  poor  living,  in  the  high  prices  of  flimsy  clothing,  in 
the  extravagant  fare  on  the  railroads,  steamboats  and  stage 
coaches,  in  the  coarse  raiment  of  his  children,  in  the  general 
poverty  of  his  life. 

But  in  all  this  the  contractor  suffers  with  the  mechanic,  and 


348  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

it  is  always  unfortunate  that  they  who  have  a  common  interest 
and  common  suffering  should  fall  out  by  the  way  at  a  time  when 
they  ought  to  unite  against  a  common  enemy  which  lies  in  wait 
to  destroy  them.  This  is  not  all.  In  the  present  state  of  affairs, 
Loth  workmen  and  contractors  will  soon  fall  to  the  ground  to 
gether,  unless  there  is  a  change  in  our  affairs. 

But  let  us  return  and  look  after  the  real  cause  of  the  trouble, 
which  now  threatens. 

First. —  We  have  a  debt  which,  with  all  of  its  responsibilities 
and  ramifications,  according  to  the  estimate  of  Thaddeus  Stevens, 
is  $4,000,000,000.  This  debt  is  being  funded,  and  is  drawing  a 
heavier  interest  than  any  other  similar  debt  under  any  other 
Government  in  the  world.  This  interest  has  to  be  paid.  It  has 
to  be  paid  with  money.  This  money  has  to  be  earned  by  the 
men  who  labor  and  create  property,  because  the  Government  re 
ceives  no  taxes  from  the  bonds  or  other  forms  of  capital  employed 
in  its  security.  This  money  has  to  be  raised  in  tariffs  and  direct 
taxes  in  their  various  forms.  The  laboring  men  who  are  com 
plaining  of  the  contractors,  are  now  paying  full  one  hundred 
per  cent,  upon  all  they  eat,  wear  and  consume.  This  seems  hard, 
and  hard  it  is.  The  laborer  complains  of  the  contractor,  but  the 
contractor  is  paying  just  the  same  exorbitant  rates,  and  is  in 
danger  of  soon  being  unable  to  carry  on  his  work.  Then  the 
laborer  turns  round  to  complain  of  the  farmer,  but  the  farmer  is 
the  victim  of  the  same  oppression.  He  pays  taxes,  stamps,  tar 
iffs  and  incomes,  until  it  is  with  difficulty  that  he  lives.  Then 
all  combine  to  complain  of  railroads,  steamboats,  &c.,  but  they 
are  struggling  with  the  same  monster, —  the  great  debt,  and  all 
suffer  together.  Then,  practically  the  laborer  works  ten  hours 
and  gets  pay  for  five,  because  the  other  five  hours  are  given  to 
the  manufacturer  and  the  tax-gatherer. 

First  —  You  have  to  pay  this  enormous  interest,  which  ought 
to  support  five  such  Governments. 

Second — You  have  to  take  bread  out  of  your  children's 
mouths ;  clothes  off  of  their  backs ;  wood  and  coal  off  of  your 
fire,  and  rent  from  your  house,  to  pay  to  keep  up  the  Negro  Bu 
reau,  which  costs  as  much  as  the  general  Government  used  to 
cost  in  the  best  days  of  the  Eepublic. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  349 

Third — You  have  to  share  in  like  manner  with  the  standing 
army,  appointed  to  trample  down  the  Southern  States,  and  which 
is  intended,  under  the  Paine  Military  bill,  to  be  employed  to  keep 
down  strikes  in  the  Northern  cities,  coal-mines  and  manufacto 
ries.  After  you  have  made  this  decimation  of  your  living,  then 
you  are  called  upon  to  give  another  portion  to  keep  up  the  stand 
ing  army  of  revenue  officers. 

Fourth — You  have  to  keep  an  army  of  Congressmen,  who, 
instead  of  relieving  you  of  debt,  are  giving  away  the  public 
lands,  and  accepting  bribes  to  vote  away  your  liberty.  These 
draughts  upon  your  labor  will  keep  farmers,  contractors,  me 
chanics  a-nd  everybody  else  poor.  Here  lies  the  evil.  Now  for 
the  remedy.  Vote  down  the  present  extravagant  system  of  gov 
ernment.  Vote  down  standing  armies,  which  you  are  now  pay 
ing  to  destroy  the  South,  and  ruin  the  trade  of  the  West ;  vote 
down  tariffs,  vote  down  the  present  corrupt  system  of  legislation, 
vote  down  the  men  who  are  keeping  up  strife  among  you. 

Suppose  you  were  to  imitate  the  demagogue  who  wanted  five 
pecks  in  a  bushel  when  he  bought,  and  three  pecks  when  he  sold ; 
the  price  regulates  the  value. 

What  the  laborers  really  want  is  to  get  the  most  money  for  the 
least  labor,  so  as  to  be  able  to  save  it  for  themselves  and  families. 
This  you  cannot  do  until  you  get  rid  of  this  taxation. 

Political  economy  is  a  system  as  exact  as  geometry,  not  to  be 
overturned  by  mere  ranting.  We  therefore  advise  the  laboring 
masses  to  go  to  your  firesides,  study  your  interests  and  rights, 
and  learn  to  protect  them. 

Dismiss  from  your  lead,  ignorant  babblers  who  never  did  a 
day's  work  in  their  life,  and  know  nothing  more  of  the  science 
of  political  economy  than  children;  but  believe  you  to  be  igno 
rant  and  play  the  demagogue  with  their  balderdash,  or  contract 
ors,  farmers  and  laborers  will  all  go  down  together.  The  first 
and  only  thing  to  be  done  is  to  get  rid  of  taxation,  which  grinds 
us  all  into  the  very  dust.  The  ballot-box  is  your  place  to  seek 
a  remedy.  But  whilst  the  very  best  half  of  the  people  are  dis 
franchised,  and  the  richest  half  of  the  United  States  is  in  ruin 
and  ashes,  starving  and  helpless,  and  the  whole  available  capital 
of  the  country  is  either  idle  on  your  hands  or  drawing  incredible 
usury,  you  have  no  relief. 


350  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

These  things  will  be  no  better,  but  will  continue  growing 
worse  under  this  misrule,  until  the  financial  system  is  ruined, 
lying  in  a  common  heap  with  the  laws,  Constitution,  and  liber 
ties  of  the  people.  Credit  implies  debt.  We  have  thousands 
of  millions  of  credit,  on  the  market,  which  represents  our  debt. 
But  debt  implies  poverty,  and  we  have  mistaken  our  poverty  for 
wealth,  which  it  is  not ;  and  unless  we  get  rid  of  this  debt  and 
taxation,  we  may  work  sixteen  hours  in  the  day,  and  still  be 
pinched  with  cold,  gaunt  with  famine,  and  not  be  able  to  save 
ourselves  from  nakedness  and  want. 

As  in  medicine,  so  in  politics;  all  specifics  are  delusive  and 
dangerous.  Whenever  the  currency,  which  is  the  blood  of  the 
commercial  world,  is  pure,  then  commerce  and  industry  of  every 
kind  will  thrive. 

Thrown  to  the  extremity  of  the  whole  body  politic,  every 
function  will  be  healthy  and  every  organ  active. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAB.  351 


CHAPTEE    VIII. 

THE  SECTIONAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE  FUNDING  SYSTEM. 

THE  people  of  the  United  States  have  just  emerged,  but  not 
recovered,  from  a  sectional  war  of  fearful  magnitude  and  relent 
less  ferocity. 

The  pretext  for  the  war  was  the  conflict  between  Northern  and 
Southern  labor ;  the  one  free,  the  other  slave  labor. 

It  is  not  less  remarkable  than  the  war  itself,  that  its  closing 
legislation  has  created  an  issue  between  the  West  and  the  East,  in 
ivhich  Western  labor  and  agricultural  industry  have  allied  the 
South  and  the  West,  to  make  common  cause  against  Eastern  cap 
ital  and  manufacturing  machinery. 

The  most  wonderful  improvements  of  modern  times,  are  those 
applied  to  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  and  the  gathering  of  the 
crops.  The  reaper,  mower,  raker,  binder,  pitcher,  thresher, 
cleaner,  and  the  other  varied  machinery  and  implements  of  hus 
bandry,  are  so  many  insentient  intelligences,  called  up  by  the 
genius  of  man  to  minister  to  his  support  and  relieve  his  muscles; 
armies  of  active  laborers,  who  ask  neither  food  nor  raiment, 
which  are  proof  against  disease,  and  may  be  reproduced  at  pleas 
ure  in  all  time  to  come. 

In  the  true  spirit  of  progress,  these  offsprings  of  invention  and 
testimonials  of  our  divinity,  should  have  been  co-laborers  to 
assist  the  producers  in  the  most  perfect  development,  of  the  incal 
culable  resources  of  the  country. 

But,  unfortunately,  these  mute  helpmates  have  been  used  in 
competition  with  agriculture,  and  the  changes  wrought  in  this 
revolution  of  industry,  have  added  comparatively  nothing  to  the 
relative  wages  of  labor,  or  the  diffusion  of  increasing  prosperity 
among  the  agricultural  classes  of  the  country ;  but  that  it  may 
be  seen  in  the  more  costly  carriages,  the  more  stately  mansions, 


352  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAE. 

the  richer  costumes  and  more  arrogant  air  of  the  capitalists 
who  own  the  railroads  and  steamships  which  transport  your  pro 
duce  from  your  door,  the  telegraph  which  informs  or  deceives 
you  in  the  matter  of  its  value,  the  bank  which  decrees  its  mar 
ket  price,  and  the  untaxed  bonds  which  absorb  it  in  annual  in 
terest,  and  the  Congress  and  legislature  who  throw  their  legis 
lative  dice,  and  gamble  upon  the  liberty  and  labor  of  the  coun 
try. 

The  funding  system  has  changed  our  entire  relation  to  the 
East,  as  the  war  has  changed  the  relation  of  the  North  to  the 
South. 

THE  EASTERN"  MANUFACTURERS  DEVOUR  WESTERN  LABOR. 

Eastern  capital  is  a  vast,  dry  sponge,  dipped  into  the  fountains 
of  Western  labor,  to  absorb  them.  Eastern  cupidity,  lank,  hun 
gry  and  voracious,  like  Pharoah's  lean  kine,  comes  down  upon 
the  burdened  grain  fields,  full  cattle,  sheep  and  horses  of  the 
West,  in  each  season,  to  devour  and  destroy  us,  cat  us  up,  and 
return  half  famished  again,  no  nearer  satisfied  than  before.  They 
meet  us  with  deception,  and  our  people  hail  their  deceit,  and  cm- 
brace  it.  Under  pretence  of  freeing  black  barbarian  slaves  turned 
loose  to  starve,  they  have  enslaved  the  industrial  pursuits  of  the 
whole  Mississippi  Valley. 

The  valleys  of  the  Nile  have  no  such  corn-fields,  the  mines 
of  Ophir  have  no  such  gold,  the  hills  of  Judea  had  no  such 
herds  of  cattle,  Egypt  had  no  such  swine,  and  Job  had  no  such 
flocks  of  sheep  as  ours. 

The  commercial  power  and  importance  of  this  immense  valley 
of  alluvial  and  mineral  lands,  is  not  only  incalculable,  but  in 
comprehensible.  Our  iron  ore  from  Lake  Superior,  is  transport 
ed  to  the  very  gateway  of  the  iron  mountains  of  Virginia  and 
Pennsylvania,  such  is  the  superiority  (and  does  not  itself  greatly 
excel  the  iron  of  Missouri,)  for  manufacturing.  Our  lead  mines 
of  Iowa,  Missouri,  Wisconsin  and  Illinois,  are  outside  of  the 
range  of  competition.  Our  resources  of  wealth  are  measureless 
and  increasing.  But  such  is  the  servile  condition  of  the  West 
ern  States,  that  New  England  absorbs  annually  all  our  profits, 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL,   WAR.  353 

and  levies  new  mortgages  upon  our  farms  with  enormous  per 
centage,  as  a  growing  debt. 

This  conflict  was  begotten  of  the  funding  system  and  must  co 
exist  with  it ;  all  mere  subterfuges  of  taxing  the  bonds  will 
scarcely  improve  it,  much  less  cure  it.  When  the  wages  of  labor 
and  the  products  of  the  soil  of  a  great  country  are  at  once  trans 
ferred  to  a  distant  country,  it  brings  nothing  in  return.  Bank 
ruptcy  must  be  imminent  and  immediate.  The  process  of  drain 
ing  is  simple  and  exhaustive.  The  farmer  pays  over  to  the  mer 
chant,  the  merchant  to  the  manufacturer,  and  the  manufacturer 
divides  it  with  the  banker,  who  is  also  the  bondholder.  This 
takes  half  he  raises ;  the  other  half  is  paid  to  the  tax-payer,  and 
the  tax-payer  pays  it  to  the  treasurer,  and  the  treasurer  pays  it 
to  the  bondholder.  In  this  way,  the  bondholder  gets  all  that  we 
pay  for  our  goods,  which  is  not  absorbed  by  the  manufacturer, 
and  the  interest  on  the  bank  notes  issued,  and  gets  all  of  the 
taxes  not  consumed  by  the  assessors,  collectors  and  spies,  to  pay 
interest  on  his  bonds.  In  this  way  the  whole  earnings  of  the 
people  of  the  West  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  East,  and  the 
laborer  acts  as  the  servant  of  capital. 

This  condition  of  things  has  been  induced  by  monstrous 
crimes,  which  will  be  atoned  for  in  fearful  retribution. 

THE  FIRST  CRIME  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  AGAINST  AGRICULTURE  — 
SHE   DESTROYED  OUR  NATURAL  MARKET. 

The  people  of  the  immediate  Mississippi  Valley  were  corn 
and  hog  growers,  mule  and  cattle  raisers.  The  vast  natural 
meadows  opened  up  herding  grounds,  unsurpassed  in  the  natural 
history  of  the  world.  Scarcely  had  the  buffalo  taken  up  his 
westward  line  of  march,  until  the  Devonshire  and  Durham  cov 
ered  the  plains  in  such  multitudes  and  droves,  as  promised  meat 
and  leather  for  the  whole  continent.  Wherever  the  furrow  was 
turned,  the  ploughman  was  repaid  with  a  return  which  invited 
immigration  from  every  part  of  the  world.  Such  was  the  char 
acter  and  employment  of  the  people  from  Lake  Pepin  to  St. 
Louis,  east  and  west  of  the  Mighty  Waters. 

They  were  the  natural  feeders  of  the  people  of  the  lower  Mis- 
23 


354  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

sissippi,  who  were  raising  cotton,  sugar,  hemp,  tobacco,  and  rice. 
Our  people  were  at  peace  with  these  people.  They  paid  us  well 
and  promptly,  and  opened  up  for  us  a  market  sure,  and  per 
petual. 

They  sold  their  products  to  every  monied  country  in  the  civ 
ilized  world,  and  paid  us  money  for  everything  they  bought,  and 
everything  we  raised  they  were  anxious  to  buy. 

We  both  lived  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  without  great 
capital,  with  a  small  amount  of  labor,  and  at  a  trifling  cost. 
Our  people  built  barges,  loaded  them  with  corn,  put  their  horses 
and  cattle  and  swine  on  steamboats,  and  in  a  few  days  they  sold 
their  produce  and  made  an  early  return.  In  this  way  we  could 
have  lived  as  peaceable  neighbors  forever. 

New  England  bought  her  cotton  from  our  neighbors  of  the 
lower  Mississippi.  She  wrought  it  into  goods.  We  bought 
them  and  asked  no  questions. 

The  manufacturers  of  New  England  grew  rich,  and  shared 
the  general  prosperity  of  the  country.  With  this  she  was  not 
satisfied.  She  sent  wicked  men  to  disseminate  mischief  among 
the  people.  She  made  open,  actual  war  upon  the  troops  of  the 
United  States,  levied  war  upon  the  flag  of  the  Union,  as  far  back 
as  1856.  She  got  bad  and  reckless  men  to  engage  in  civil  war 
in  Kansas  and  Virginia,  under  John  Brown,  and  the  Governor 
of  the  State  to  furnish  arms  to  begin  it.  The  history  is  before 
you.  Shame  throws  her  mantle  over  these  crimes,  and  blushes 
for  the  country. 

Through  the  instigation  of  New  England,  we  sent  troops  to 
bum  up  the  cotton  fields.  After  the  return  of  our  troops,  we 
had  to  burn  up  our  own  corn-fields,  for  there  was  nobody  to  buy 
our  corn.  We  had  ruined  our  only  customers.  We  could  not 
send  our  corn  to  New  England,  without  selling  five  bushels  at 
home  to  pay  the  freight  of  one  bushel  to  market. 

The  excuse  of  New  England  was,  her  conscientious  scruples 
against  the  crime  of  human  slavery.  This  was  the  merest  pre 
tence  ;  for,  at  the  very  time  they  were  clamoring  against  the 
wickedness  of  slavery,  which  separated  families,  the  Governor 
of  Massachusetts  was  engaged  in  sending  ship  loads  of  women 
away  from  the  State,  to  hunt  husbands  on  the  slope  of  the  Pacific, 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  355 

and  many  of  whom  landed  in  New  York  brothels.  But  New 
England  had  a  purpose  in  no  wise  inconsistent  with  her  early 
slave-trading  history.  This  purpose  was  to  divert  our  trade 
and  enslave  our  labor,  to  pension  manufacturers  and  create  lord- 
lings  in  an  untaxed,  bonded  aristocracy.  This  she  accomplished 
by  her  first  great  crime 

After  destroying  our  great  highway  to  the  markets  of  the 
world  through  the  Mississippi,  New  England  drove  us  into  her 
market  to  be  robbed  by  her  carriers  on  the  way,  and  by  her  mer 
chants  and  manufacturers  in  the  market  place. 

THE   SECOND    CRIME    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    AGAINST    WESTERN 
AGRICULTURE. 

"When  New  England  had  baptised  the  floodtide  of  our  mighty 
river  with  the  richest  blood  of  our  young  men,  had  inflamed  the 
country  into  civil  war,  and  blockaded  our  ports,  we  had  but  one 
customer  left  —  New  England.  She  owned  the  railroads,  she 
watched  the  markets ;  and  if  the  price  of  wheat  increased  one 
cent,  they  would  increase  the  price  of  freight  two  cents  on  the 
bushel,  leaving  us  one  cent  less  in  the  price  of  the  wheat  than 
before  the  rise.  After  having  destroyed  our  natural  highway 
to  our  natural  market,  she  drove  us  to  her  artificial  thoroughfare, 
and  prevented  the  possibility  of  profit  upon  anything  we  had  to 
sell  or  export;  so  that  the  benefits  of  an  ordinary  rise  and  fall 
of  the  market  were  not  allowed  to  extend  to  us.  A  more  com 
plete  vassalage  of  an  agricultural  to  a  manufacturing  people  is 
inconceivable. 

After  New  England  had  begun  the  war,  she  then  inflamed  the 
Western  soldiers  with  incendiary  harangues,  and  took  the  flower 
of  the  Western  States  to  fight  the  bloody  battles  and  endure  the 
terrible  campaigns  in  the  swamps. 

Whilst  Massachusetts  was  hiring  negroes  in  the  South,  Indians 
in  the  West,  vagabonds  and  criminals  in  Europe,  to  fill  her 
quota,  the  very  best  blood  of  the  Western  States  went  en  masse 
to  the  Avar.  It  was  a  sorrowful  picture  to  see  our  poor  men 
burning  up  cotton,  to  return  home  and  find  their  ragged  families 
paying  five  prices  for  their  muslin ;  burning  up  sugar  planta- 


356  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

tions,  when  their  wives  and  children  were  crying  for  saccharine 
to  sweeten  their  coffee ;  spreading  desolation  in  the  South  to 
destroy  ourselves  and  enrich  New  England. 

THE  THIRD  CRIME  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  AGAINST  WESTERN  AGRI 
CULTURE,  IN  TAXING  WESTERN  MANUFACTURES  BY  EXCISE, 
WHILE   EASTERN   MANUFACTURES    WERE  PROTECTED 
BY   HEAVY  TARIFF  DUTIES. 

The  Corn  States  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  had  no  market  for 
their  corn.  In  the  south,  it  could  not  be  exported ;  its  bulk  and 
weight  forbade  it.  The  cholera  swept  off  their  hogs  by  the  mil 
lion,  and  their  corn  was  rotting  in  the  crib  and  in  the  field,  and 
would  not  pay  the  gathering.  It  was  a  cheap  fuel.  There  was 
nothing  left  the  people  but  to  distil  their  corn,  to  put  it  in  such 
form  as  to  send  it  to  market.  This  distilled  corn  is  the  basis  of 
nearly  every  form  of  medicine ;  is  used  in  paints,  for  medical 
and  mechanical  purposes ;  is  a  staple  as  necessary  to  legitimate 
business  as  iron  or  cloth.  Yet  while  New  England  was  demand 
ing  a  tariff  of  fifty  cents  a  yard  on  all  cloths,  coarse  and  fine, 
besides  thirty-five  per  cent,  ad  valorem,  quite  doubling  the  price 
of  all  the  clothing  of  the  poor  of  the  country, —  the  pretence  was 
to  protect  domestic  manufactures ; —  she  levied  an  excise  duty  of 
eight  hundred  per  cent,  upon  the  liquors  manufactured  for  all 
medical  and  mechanical  purposes  in  the  Western  States.  The 
pretence  was  to  prevent  intoxication  and  crime,  and  the  punish 
ment  of  liquor  dealers.  The  truth  is.  that  the  excise  made  all 
the  old  whisky  dealers  rich,  and  injured  nobody  except  the  West 
ern  people,  who  had  a  vast  amount  of  corn  they  were  under  the 
necessity  of  selling  at  some  price ;  and  by  this  legislation  were 
forced  to  sell  it  for  a  song,  or  use  it  for  fuel. 

THE  FOURTH   CRIME   OF  NEW  ENGLAND   AGAINST  WESTERN 
AGRICULTURE. 

After  the  destruction  of  the  Southern  market,  the  spread  of  the 
great  swine  plague,  and  the  adoption  of  the  monstrous  excise  system 
against  high  wine;  the  people  of  the  Western  States  commenced 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  357 

wool -growing  upon  a  most  extensive  scale,  stocking  their  farms, 
at  very  heavy  expense,  with  the  best  blood  in  Europe  and  Amer 
ica  ;  building  barns  and  sheds,  and  changing  their  former  pur 
suits,  adapting  their  entire  business  and  capital  to  the  new  enter 
prise.  This  was,  with  them,  the  commencement  of  this  form  of 
production.  It  was  that  very  condition  of  things  for  which  even 
general  free  trade  men  believed  protection  admissible.  The  pro 
tection  given  to  the  manufacturers  of  woolen  goods  was  greater 
than  had  ever  been  exacted  or  demanded  before  in  the  history  of 
manufacturers  anywhere;  and  was  under  pretence  of  giving  pro 
tection,  also,  to  the  wool-growers :  but  in  the  very  same  bill  the 
coarse  wools,  of  which  they  manufacture  their  cloth,  (which  is 
protected  at  least  one  hundred  per  cent.)  has  an  average  duty  of 
but  little  more  than  one  per  cent.  This  bill  lets  in  coarse  wool 
from  South  America  to  the  destruction  of  wool-growing  in  this 
country ;  is  bought  by  New  England  manufacturers  and  sold  to 
the  poor  people  of  the  country  with  an  added  tariff  of  one  hun 
dred  per  cent. ;  at  the  same  stroke,  smiting  down  the  wool-grow 
er  and  the  wearer  of  their  manufactures.  This  final  blow  leaves 
the  Western  farmer  no  business,  which  is  not  absorbed  by  New 
England. 


THE  IMPOSITIONS  UPON  THE  WESTERN  PEOPLE. 

To  delude  the  Western  people,  New  England  proposes  slight 
tariffs  upon  those  articles  of  production,  which  it  is  impossible 
that  competition  should  import  from  abroad ;  which  are,  however, 
consumed  by  competition  at  home  and  for  the  protection  of 
which,  tariffs  afford  no  remedy  whatever. 

Suppose  a  duty  of  twenty  cents  were  imposed  upon  a  bushel 
of  foreign  corn ;  this  could  give  no  protection  to  any  corn  raised 
in  the  Mississippi  valley,  because  the  competition  comes  from  the 
farmers  who  surround  him. 

There  is  a  gentleman,  surnamed  gaunt  famine,  who  with  a 
coarse  indifference  to  good  society,  always  improves  your  market, 
but  leaves  you  nothing  to  sell. 

The  Eastern  capitalists  have  taught  Western  producers  to  be 
lieve  that  favorite  theory  of  tyrants,  that  "  every  new  tax  creates 


•358  CHIMES  OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

a  new  ability  in  the  subject  to  bear  it,  and  each  increase  of  public 
burden  increases  proportionately  the  industry  of  the  people." 

But  like  all  other  increases  of  industry,  it  imposes  new  tasks 
upon  the  old  laborers  to  increase  the  facilities  for  the  groser  en 
joyment  of  the  rich. 

These  tasks  increased,  fall  with  such  weight  upon  the  people, 
that  they  sink  under  it. 

They  have  to  work  harder,  without  living  better  than  before, 
realizing  less  for  their  labor. 

These  complications  of  sectional  difficulties  must  be  simplified 
to  be  understood. 

The  great  civil  war  upon  the  Southern  States  was  covertly 
directed  against  the  West,  because  the  vassalage  of  the  South  to 
the  East  assures  the  vassalage  of  the  West  to  the  East. 

If  the  East  can  disfranchise  the  South,  they  need  not  disfran 
chise  the  West,  nor  fear  the  issue  in  a  contest  between  the  sec 
tions.  She  is  now  the  most  powerful. 

The  East  now  holds  the  West  in  her  hands  with  a  deadly 
grasp. 

With  the  South  disfranchised,  the  West  subsidized,  the  East 
ern  States  lose  the  resistance  of  the  one,  purchase  the  acquies 
cence  of  the  other,  through  their  representation,  and  leave  the 
people  powerless,  bound  in  chains  forged  by  themselves. 

The  robberies  and  oppressions  of  the  tariff,  are  oppressions  of 
the  West  by  the  East. 

The  robberies  and  swindles  of  the  bonds,  are  swindles  of  the 
East  upon  the  West. 

The  usuries,  extortions  and  exchanges,  are  Eastern  drafts  upon 
Western  industry. 

The  machinery  of  capital  is  complete,  and  opens  up  an  avenue 
through  which  Western  labor  flows  in  a  steady  stream  into  the 
reservoirs  of  Eastern  capital. 

The  real  and  sham  Insurance  companies  of  Eastern  capital,  levy 
a  heavy  tribute  upon  everything  which  may  be  consumed  by 
flood  or  fire. 

JSfew  England  owns  the  railroads,  telegraphs,  and  every  other 
means  of  transportation. 

She  holds  mortgages  upon  the  new  cities  of  the  lakes. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK.  359 

The  towns  and  villages  of  the  frontier,  are  under  Eastern 
domination  and  capital,  which  has  been  gathered  from  bounties 
paid  to  fisheries,  and  duties  imposed  upon  manufactured  goods. 

Eastern  capital  controls  the  Western  State  legislation,  courts 
and  literature. 

The  national  banks  are  Eastern  banks,  created  to  control 
Western  business  and  absorb  Western  labor. 

Under  the  same  dictation,  the  President  would  exclude  every 
one  owning  over  $20,000,  from  general  amnesty ;  driving  the 
capital  from  the  Southern  States,  already  reduced  to  beggary. 

All  legislative  protection  of  the  East  is  at  the  expense  of  the 
West. 

Between  the  interests  of  the  East  and  the  West,  there  is  noth 
ing  in  common.  The  people  have  different  pursuits,  different 
population  and  different  markets.  These  markets  are  so  remote 
from  each  other  that  it  is  a  matter  demonstrable  that  we  may 
send  our  produce  to  Liverpool  by  way  of  New  Orleans,  and  pay 
all  expenses,  contingent  and  direct,  at  a  less  cost  and  greater 
profit  than  we  can  transport  it  to  Boston,  through  our  almost 
perfect  railroad  system,  under  Eastern  control. 

This  is  true  of  the  whole  country  west  of  the  Mississippi  and 
south  of  the  Ohio  rivers. 

But  this  need  not  be  so  if  a  generous  system  of  legislation  and 
just  employment  of  capital  is  made. 

The  protective  tariffs  inure  entirely  to  the  benefit  of  the  East 
at  the  expense  of  the  West:  because  manufacturing  is  sectional, 
confined  to  the  East. 

The  West  have  no  facilities  for  manufacturing  such  articles  as 
we  import  from  the  East. 

The  Western  States  are  too  remote  from  the  East  to  exchange 
commodities  upon  terms  as  favorable  as  they  could  with  Europe 
under  fair  reciprocity  treaties. 

But  precisely  the  same  relation  borne  to  New  England  by  the 
West,  is  sustained  by  the  South. 

Between  the  West  and  South  there  is  a  community  of  interest 
which  makes  them  tenants  in  common  of  the  great  agricultural 
regions  of  the  United  States. 

The  difference  is  in  the  manual  force  which  created  and  di 
rected  their  respective  labor. 


360  CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL   WAE. 

In  the  West,  by  the  free  Caucasian  controlling  as  well  as 
working  his  field,  he  is  the  actuary  of  his  own  plantation  and 
business.  The  South  use  the  labor  of  the  ignorant,  barbarous 
people,  placed  under  their  guardianship.  Between  these  systems 
there  was  the  most  perfect  harmony ;  in  their  operations,  they 
exhibited  the  most  perfect  symmetry. 

Every  Constitutional  Amendment  proposed,  is  an  amendment 
aimed  at  the  West. 

The  payment  of  the  debt  must  be  by  the  West,  which  pro 
duces  everything,  and  pays  the  tariffs,  &c. 

The  inventive  genius  of  villainy  could  suggest  no  new  scheme 
of  plunder  which  has  not  been  prominent  in  the  embarassmeut 
of  trade  and  the  robbery  of  the  West  by  the  East. 

Every  principle  of  economy  urged  as  a  plea  for  the  protec 
tion  of  herself,  is  applied  to  the  oppression  of  the  West. 

The  East  demands  protection  for  her  own  manufactures,  and 
oifer,  as  apology,  that  manufactures  are  essential  to  national 
wealth.  In  the  same  sessions  of  legislation,  she  demands  penal 
taxation  for  articles  manufactured  in  the  Western  States,  and 
pleads  that  they  contribute  to  the  moral  evils  of  the  country. 

The  government  has  paid  bounties  to  Eastern  whale-hunters, 
to  build  up  commerce;  but  she  prohibits,  by  duties,  the  importa 
tion  of  all  foreign  goods,  and  thereby  dispenses  with  merchant 
men  and  destroys  commerce. 

New  England  demands  a  premium  upon  everything  she  raises 
upon  her  stony  soil  and  inhospitable  clirne,  and  demands  a  tax 
upon  cotton,  oil,  and  every  other  product,  because  they  are  the 
product  of  rebels.  They  secured  the  abrogation  of  the  Cana 
dian  reciprocity  treaty,  to  secure  a  trifling  protection  to  a  few 
half-starved  Eastern  iarmers  and  lumber  merchants,  but  which 
could  not  possibly  affect  the  Western  farmer,  whose  crop  would 
be  exhausted  in  the  transportation,  long  before  it  could  reach  a 
point  of  competition  with  the  same  Canadian  article,  and  our 
superior  facilities  defy  competition  on  our  own  ground. 

Such  is  the  stupidity  of  the  Western  people,  that  they  are 
rearing  monuments  to  perpetuate  their  own  shame,  and  cele 
brating  anniversaries  to  commemorate  their  own  subjugation. 

We  were  using  our  own  armies  to  destroy  our  own  markets. 


CEIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL   WAE. 

When  the  husky  voice  of  a  mongrel  fanaticism  drove  the 
Western  States  into  an  unnatural  market,  and  forced  an  unnatu 
ral  alliance  with  New  England,  (bearing  precisely  the  same  rela 
tion  to  her  haughty  ally,  that  poor  Jim  Boswell  bore  to  Dr. 
Johnson,)  they  seem  flattered  by  very  much  the  same  style  of 
adulation  employed  by  the  great  lexicographer  to  his  factotum. 

History  illustrates  no  such  voluntary  debasement  as  that  of 
the  Western  people ;  with  such  a  population,  resources,  produc 
tions  and  dependencies,  surrendered  without  hesitation,  to  mas 
ters  so  exacting  and  remote  from  them.  This  condition  of  things 
will  continue  whilst  the  people  remain  ignorant  of  their  wants, 
powers,  duties,  and  obligation  to  themselves  and  society.  Their 
representatives  will  grow  rich  in  the  sale  of  the  liberties  of  their 
constituencies,  and  revel  in  wealth  in  their  presence. 

Such  is  the  condition  of  the  brewing  sectional  strife  between 
the  great  divisions  of  the  country. 

Time  moves  slowly  along,  and  at  its  heels  drags  on  the  ap 
pointed  events  of  fate,  and  the  purposes  of  destiny  are  slowly 
filling  up  their  measure.  Money  is  becoming  all  the  time  a  little 
scarcer.  Houses  are  scarce,  and  nobody  builds,  because  their 
money  is  safely  locked  up  in  bonds ;  and  bonds  pay  better,  and 
cost  less  in  taxation,  than  anything  else.  It  will  not  justify  the 
farmer  to  break  prairie,  fence  fields,  plant  orchards,  or  engage  in 
any  other  speculation  or  enterprize.  All  these  things  are  taxed 
beyond  endurance;  but  bonds  are  not  taxed  and  not  taxable. 
They  draw  a  higher  interest,  paid  by  a  deluded  people,  on  long 
time,  than  a  second-rate  merchant  can  afford  to  pay  on  a  sixty 
day's  note  in  a  country  bank,  and  retain  his  credit.  But  this 
will  be  the  hardest  year  of  taxation  ever  known  in  the  Western 
States,  and  the  most  difficult  year  in  which  to  pay  taxes.  The 
war  has  literally  swept  from  the  plantation,  horses,  mules,  cattle, 
swine,  and  everything  but  sheep,  which  have  taken  the  place  of 
the  cotton-boll.  Horses  were  slaughtered  in  battle,  or  worn  out 
on  the  march ;  cattle  were  wantonly  shot  down  in  large  herds, 
and  left  to  perish,  whilst  the  primest  of  the  land  were  slaugh 
tered  for  beef;  and  then  the  hog  cholera  swept  like  an  Egyptian 
plague  from  farm  to  farm,  sometimes  leaving  scarcely  the  seed  of 
the  race  in  its  train. 


362  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

The  farmers  are  nothing  like  so  rich  this  year  as  they  were 
last,  and  will  be  much  poorer  next.  Emigration  from  the  valley 
to  the  mountains  has  commenced,  through  the  scarcity  of  money ; 
and  many  who  returned  from  the  war  with  money  in  their  pock 
ets,  are  now  without  a  dime,  entering  on  the  struggle  for  life,  in 
competition  with  the  negro  as  a  day  laborer ;  and  the  men  whose 
battles  they  fought,  employ  the  negro  in  preference  to  the  poor 
white  man,  who  has  served  their  purpose.  The  people  of  the 
country,  like  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  seem  oblivious  of 
their  financial  condition.  They  talk  like  people  who  are  out  of 
debt;  like  a  rich  lunatic  who  had  burned  up  his  fine  farms, 
torn  out  his  dams,  shot  down  his  horses,  cattle,  sheep  and  hogs, 
destroyed  his  mills,  dismissed  his  intelligent  clerks  and  business 
men,  and  invited  his  laboring  hands  to  a  general  drunken  spree, 
as  the  status  of  their  future  condition ;  and  after  the  universal 
destruction  of  his  productive  power  for  which  he  has  paid  enor 
mous  sums,  he  goes  to  work  to  speculate  upon  his  future  pros 
pects;  of  the  yield  of  farms  without  hands,  laid  waste;  the 
manufactory  of  mills  lying  in  ashes;  dams  levelled  with  the 
waters ;  of  the  increase  of  his  dead  horses,  cattle,  sheep  and 
hogs,  and  issues  a  proclamation  to  his  drunken  rabble,  that  the 
next  will  exceed  all  former  crops ;  and  jubilant  over  his  financial 
condition  and  the  prowess  of  his  rapscalleons  and  slubberdegul- 
lions,  and  proud  of  the  attractive  beauty  of  his  yahoos,  threatens 
to  extend  this  plantation  style  of  improvement. 

This  is  the  condition  of  the  whole  Southern  States.  In  the 
Western,  buggies  in  the  summer,  and  sleighs  in  the  winter,  with 
the  music  of  their  jingling  bells,  have  not  so  much  custom  and 
go  out  at  lower  prices  than  formerly. 

The  Western  soldiers  who  fought  with  a  desperation  rarely  wit 
nessed  on  the  field,  and  marched  with  an  endurance  rarely  rival 
led  in  the  movement  of  armies,  are  now  poor,  many  of  them 
maimed  and  broken  down ;  none  of  them  rich.  Of  the  faithful 
men  who  volunteered  through  devotion  to  the  cause  in  which 
they  fought,  the  suffering  is  very  great  and  the  money  which 
ought  to  be  devoted  to  the  comforts,  is  thrown  away  in  tariffs 
upon  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  the  home  of  the  active  warrior 
is  only  less  desolate  than  those  whose  domicil  he  left  in  ashes. 


CEIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR.  363 

Nearly  all  of  the  bounty  money  has  been  expended.  Blue 
coats  on  the  village  squares  are  becoming  scarcer,  loafers  more 
abundant,  crime  on  the  increase,  grain  selling  lower,  taxes  in 
creasing,  money  becoming  scarcer,  and  complaint  becoming  gen 
eral,  with  only  this  unfortunate  difficulty,  that  the  seat  of  the 
disease  has  not  been  reached. 

THE    CONDITION  OF  THE  WESTEKN  STATES. 

There  is  much  ado  about  railroads,  monopolies,  and  building 
railroads,  and  cutting  canals,  and  uniting  oceans  by  common 
channels,  &c.,  as  a  remedy  for  the  evils  of  expensive  transporta 
tion.  The  people  are  in  a  condition  of  perturbation.  The  only 
good  that  may  come  of  this  is  the  attention  which  it  may  arouse 
and  the  enquiry  which  it  may  elicit,  and  ultimately  lead  to  a  sus 
picion,  at  least,  of  the  true  consequences  of  the  troubles  of  which 
they  complain.  They  complain  of  the  railroad  monopolies. 
This  is  unfair.  The  freights  and  passage  are  not  unusually  or  un 
necessarily  high,  as  compared  with  everything  else.  Their  stamp 
duties  are  imposed  by  the  act  of  the  General  Government.  Their 
income  taxes,  with  the  other  legal  obstructions  to  free  commerce, 
make  high  prices  a  necessity  to  their  very  existence.  The  evil  is 
beyond  that,  and  will  be  recurred  to  again.  The  evil  is  in  this 
fact,  that  the  country  owes  an  incalculably  oppressive  debt  that 
will  hold  in  bonds  the  industrial  energies  in  all  time  to  come. 
Every  part  of  the  whole  body  politic  will  groan  under  it ;  the 
legs  will  grow  weary  and  tremble  in  their  effort  to  stand  alone. 
The  back  will  grow  weak,  the  head  dizzy,  and  the  stomach  lose 
its  digestion,  until  the  whole  paralyzed  frame  lies  prostrate  and 
dead.  Only  the  babbling  tongue  of  loyalty,  unconscious  of  the 
evils  upon  us,  will  cry  for  new  taxation. 

The  West  has  either  to  yield  to  these  impositions  and  make  a 
cowardly  transmission  of  the  burdens  to  her  children,  or  at  once 
to  prepare  to  throw  off  the  yoke,  and  emancipate  herself  and  her 
country  together. 

Let  Western  men  every  where  unite  upon  this  general  basis. 

1.  EQUALITY  OF  LABOR  AND  ITS  PRODUCTS. 

2.  THAT  NO  ONE  SPECIES  OF  INDUSTRY  SHALL  BE  SUP 
PORTED  AT  THE  EXPENSE  OF  ANOTHER. 


364  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

3.  Reciprocity  treaties  as  the  basis  of  commerce  among  civil 
ized  nations. 

4.  The  abolition  of  the  funding  system,  with  its  standing  ar 
mies,  banks,  protective  tariffs,  and  gambling  corporations,  based 
upon  visionary  capital. 

5.  The  restoration  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  as 
a  perpetual  bond  of  union  among  all  the  States,  and  a  wall  of 
fire,  with  its  leaping  flames  to  environ  the  liberties  of  the  people. 

PEOPLE  OF  THE  WEST  OF  ALL  NAMES,  emancipate  yourselves 
from  the  leagues,  societies  and  combinations  of  party,  which  are 
always  corrupt  and  corrupting ;  elevate  your  souls  to  the  contem 
plation  of  those  great  truths  which  were  sealed  by  the  blood  of 
our  fathers,  of  which  our  material  interests  were  the  most  endur 
ing  testimonial.  Cast  your  eye  forward  to  the  future  dwelling 
place  of  our  children,  together  in  a  great  valley,  with  all  of  the 
diversities  of  wealth,  and  sources  of  happiness,  grandeur  of  em 
pire  and  beauty  of  scenery,  which  adorned  the  primeval  habita 
tions  of  our  first  parents.  Let  the  sacred  ashes  of  our  fathers, 
preserved  undisturbed  in  the  beautiful  cemeteries  adorned  by  our 
children,  remind  us  of  the  glories  of  the  past,  and  the  growth, 
prosperity  and  power  of  our  posterity,  stimulate  us  to  firmly  de 
mand  and  unflinchingly  maintain  our  equal  rights  of  commerce, 
agriculture,  representation  and  constitutional  government. 

This,  honest  men  will  not  deny  us,  and  no  power  of  villainy 
can  extort  by  violence. 

We  appeal  to  the  young  men  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  to  join 
us  in  the  movement  to  save  us  from  the  bondage  of  the  capital 
ists.  The  young  men  of  this  great  valley,  of  both  armies,  in 
spired  by  youthful  fire  and  love  of  country,  as  they  understood 
it,  went  to  war  with  each  other.  Now  the  war  is  over.  The 
Mississippi  Valley,  once  the  garden  of  the  world,  sits  in  desola 
tion,  while  Eastern  capital,  enriched  by  your  mutual  blood,  is 
absorbing  your  labor.  In  Heaven's  beneficent  name,  let  all  the 
past  be  forgotten,  and  call  back  the  precious  recollection  that  we 
are  brethren ;  forget  not  that  the  crystal  waters  of  Lake  Pepin, 
which  reflect  the  images  of  the  lovely  daughters  of  the  upper 
Mississippi,  sweep  on  their  majestic  course,  and  cast  back  the 
shadows  of  the  children  of  the  Gulf,  that  we  are  all  one.  Upon 


CHIMES  OF   THE  CIVIL  WAR.  365 

this  one  subject  we  can  all  agree ;  "  Radical/'  "  Rebel,"  Conser 
vative,  Democrat, — that  Saint  Louis  must  not  be  tributary  to 
Boston;  that  Chicago  must  no  longer  be  the  mere  tenant  of 
Eastern  capitalists ;  that  we,  who  hold  the  granary  of  the  world 
in  our  hands,  need  not  go  begging  for  bread.  Then  let  us  or 
ganize,  without  regard  to  subjects  of  discord,  and  unite  to  rid  us 
of  this  debasing  servitude. 


CHIMES  OF   THE  CIVIL,   WAS. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  BANKING  SYSTEM. 


CHAPTER    I. 

MR.  JEFFERSON'S  OBJECTIONS  TO  NATIONAL  BANKS. 

1.  To  form  the  subscribers  into  a  corporation. 

2.  To  enable  them  in  their  corporate  capacities,  to  receive 
grants  of  land,  and  so  far,  is  against  the  laws  of  mortmain. 

[NOTE. — Though  the  Constitution  controls  the  laws  of  mort 
main,  so  far  as  to  permit  Congress  itself  to  hold  lauds  for  certain 
purposes,  yet  not  so  far  as  to  permit  them  to  communicate  a  sim 
ilar  right  to  other  corporate  bodies.] 

3.  To  make  alien  subscribers  capable  of  holding  lands,  so  far, 
is  against  the  laws  of  alienage. 

4.  To  transmit  these  lands,  on  the  death  of  a  proprietor,  to 
a  certain  line  of  successors,  and  so  far,  changes  the  course  of 
descent. 

5.  To  put  the  lands  out  of  the  reach  of  forfeiture  or  escheat, 
and  so  far,  is  against  the  laws  of  forfeiture  and  escheat. 

6.  To  transmit  personal  chatties  to  successors  in  a  certain  line,, 
and  so  far,  is  against  the  laws  of  distribution. 

7.  To  give  them   the  sole  and  exclusive  right  of  banking, 
under  the  national  authority,  and  so  far,  is  against  the  laws  of 
monopoly. 

8.  To  communicate  to  them  a  power  to  make  laws,  paramount 
to  the  laws  of  the  States,  for  so  they  must  be  construed ;  to  pro 
tect  the  institution  from  the  control  of  the  State  Legislatures,  and 
so,  probably,  they  will  be  construed.     I  consider  the  foundation 
of  the  Constitution  as  laid  on  this  ground  ;  that  all  powers  not 
delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohib 
ited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States,  or  to  the 
people. 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL  WAK.  367 

Amendment. — To  take  a  single  step  beyond  the  bounda 
ries  thus  specially  drawn  around  the  powers  of  Congress,  is  to 
take  possession  of  a  boundless  field  of  power ;  no  longer  suscep 
tible  of  any  definition.  The  incorporation  of  a  bank  and  the 
powers  assumed  by  this  bill,  have  not,  in  my  opinion,  been  dele 
gated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitution. 

They  are  not  among  the  enumerated  powers,  for  these  are:-'- 

1.  A  power  to  lay  taxes  for  the  purpose  of  paying  the  debts 
of  the  United  States,  but  no  debt  is  paid  by  this  bill  nor  any  tax 
laid.     Were  it  a  bill  to  raise  money,  its  organization  in  the  Senate 
would  condemn  it  by  the  Constitution. 

2.  To  borrow  money ;  but  this  bill  neither  borrows  money, 
nor  insures  the  borrowing  of  it.     The  proprietors  of  the  bank 
will  be  just  as  free  as  any  other  money-holders  to  lend,  or  not  to 
lend  their  money  to  the  public.     The  operation  proposed  in  the 
bill,  first,  to  lend  them  two  millions  and  then  borrow  them  back 
again,  cannot  change  the  nature  of  the  latter  act,  which  will  still 
be  a  payment  and  not  a  loan, —  call  it  by  what  name  you  please. 

3.  To  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations  and  among  the 
States,  and  with  the  Indian  tribes. 

To  erect  a  bank  and  regulate  commerce,  are  very  different  acts. 
He  who  erects  a  bank,  creates  a  subject  of  commerce  in  its  bills ; 
so  does  he  who  makes  a  bushel  of  wheat,  or  digs  a  dollar  out  of 
the  mines.  Yet  neither  of  these  persons  regulate  commerce 
thereby. 

To  make  a  thing  which  may  be  bought  and  sold,  is  not  to  pre 
scribe  regulations  for  buying  and  selling.  Besides,  if  this  were 
an  exercise  of  the  power  of  regulating  commerce,  it  would  be 
void,  as  extending  as  much  to  the  internal  commerce  of  every 
State  as  to  its  external. 

For  the  power  given  to  the  Congress  by  the  Constitution  does 
not  extend  to  the  internal  regulation  of  the  commerce  of  a  State ; 
that  is  to  say,  of  the  commerce  between  citizen  and  citizen,  which 
remains  exclusively  with  its  own  legislature :  but  to  its  external 
commerce  only,  that  is  to  say,  its  commerce  with  another  State, 
or  with  foreign  nations,  or  with  the  Indian  tribes.  Accordingly, 
the  bill  does  not  propose  the  measure  as  a  regulation  of  trade, 
but  as  productive  of  considerable  advantage  to  trade.  Still  less 


368  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAE. 

are  these  powers  covered  by  any  other  of  the  special  enumer 
ations. 

II.  ISTor  are  they  within  either  of  the  general  phrases,  which 
are  the  two  following : — 

1.  To  lay  taxes  to  provide  for  the  general  welfare  of  the 
United  States ;  that  is  to  say,  to  lay  taxes  for  the  purpose  of  pro 
viding  for  the  general  welfare.  For  the  laying  of  taxes  is  the 
power,  and  the  general  welfare  the  purpose,  for  which  the  power 
is  to  be  exercised.  Congress  is  not  to  lay  taxes  ad  libitiumj  for 
any  purpose  they  please,  but  only  to  pay  the  debts  or  provide  for 
the  welfare  of  the  Union.  In  like  manner,  they  are  not  to  do 
anything  they  please,  to  provide  for  the  general  well,  but  only  to 
lay  taxes  for  that  purpose.  To  consider  the  latter  phrase,  not  as 
a  describing  the  purpose  of  the  first,  but  as  giving  a  distinct  and 
independent  power  to  do  any  act  they  please,  which  might  be  for 
the  good  of  the  Union,  would  render  all  the  preceding  and  sub 
sequent  enumerations  of  power  completely  useless.  It  would 
reduce  the  whole  instrument  to  a  single  phrase. 

That  of  instituting  a  Congress  with  power  to  do  whatever 
would  be  for  the  good  of  the  United  States,  and  as  they  would 
be  the  sole  judges  of  the  good  or  evil,  it  would  be  also  a  power 
to  do  whatever  evil  they  pleased.  It  is  an  established  rule  of 
construction,  where  a  phrase  will  bear  either  of  two  meanings, 
to  give  it  that  which  will  allow  some  meaning  to  the  other  parts 
of  the  instrument,  and  not  that  which  will  render  all  the  others 
useless.  Certainly  no  such  universal  power  was  meant  to  be 
given  them. 

It  was  intended  to  lace  them  up  straightly  within  the  enume 
rated  powers ;  and  those  without  which  as  means  these  powers, 
could  not  be  carried  into  effect.  It  is  known  that  the  very  power 
now  proposed  as  a  means,  was  rejected  as  an  end  by  the  conven 
tion  which  formed  the  Constitution.  A  proposition  was  made  to 
them,  to  authorize  Congress  to  open  canals,  and  an  amendatory 
one  to  empower  them  to  incorporate.  But  the  whole  was  reject 
ed,  and  one  of  the  reasons  of  the  rejection  urged  in  debate,  was, 
that  they  then  would  have  a  power  to  erect  a  bank,  which  would 
render  the  greater  cities,  where  there  were  prejudices  and  jeal 
ousies  upon  that  subject,  adverse  to  the  reception  of  $he  Consti 
tution. 


CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  369 

2.  The  second  general  phrase  is,  to  make  all  laws  necessary 
and  proper,  for  carrying  .into  execution  the  enumerated  powers. 

But  they  can  all  be  carried  into  execution  without  a  bank.  A 
bank,  therefore,  is  not  necessary,  and  consequently,  not  authorized 
by  this  phrase. 

It  has  been  much  urged  that  a  bank  will  give  great  facility  or 
convenience  in  the  collection  of  taxes.  Suppose  this  were  true ; 
yet  the  Constitution  allows  only  the  means  which  are  necessary, 
not  those  which  are  merely  convenient  for  effecting  the  enume 
rated  powers ;  if  such  a  latitude  of  construction  be  allowed  to 
this  phrase,  as  to  give  any  non-enumerated  power,  it  will  go 
every  one,  for  there  is  no  one  which  ingenuity  may  not  torture 
into  a  convenience,  in  some  way  or  other,  to  some  one  of  so  long 
a  list  of  enumerated  powers.  It  would  swallow  up  all  the  dele 
gated  powers  and  reduce  the  whole  to  one  phrase,  as  before  ob 
served. 

Therefore  it  was,  that  the  Constitution  restrained  them  to  tho, 
necessary  means ;  that  is  to  say,  to  those  means,  without  which, 
the  grant  of  the  power  would  be  nugatory.  *  *  *  * 

Perhaps  bank  bills  may  be  a  more  convenient  vehicle  than 
Treasury  orders,  but  a  little  difference  in  the  degree  of  conve 
nience  cannot  constitute  the  necessity,  which  the  Constitution 
makes  the  ground  for  assuming  any  non-enumerated  power.  *  * 

Can  it  be  thought  that  the  Constitution  intended  that  for  a 
shade  or  two  of  convenience,  more  or  less,  Congress  should  be 
authorized  to  break  down  the  most  ancient  and  fundamental  laws 
of  the  several  States,  such  as  those  against  mortmain,  the  laws 
against  alienage,  the  rules  of  descent,  the  acts  of  distribution, 
the  laws  of  escheat  and  forfeiture,  and  the  laws  of  monopoly  ? 

Nothing  but  a  necessity,  invincible  by  any  other  means,  can 
justify  such  a  prostration  of  laws,  which  constitute  the  pillars 
of  our  whole  system  of  jurisprudence.  Will  Congress  be  too 
straight-laced  to  carry  the  Constitution  into  honest  effect,  unless 
they  may  pass  over  the  foundation  laws  of  the  State  Government 
for  the  slightest  convenience  to  theirs  ? 

The  negative  of  the  President,  is  the  shield  provided  by  the 
Constitution  to  protect  against  the  invasions  of  the  legislature. 

1.  The  rights  of  the  Executive. 
24 


370  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR. 

2.  Of  the  judiciary. 

3.  Of  the  States  and  State  Legislatures. 

The  present  is  the  case  of  a  right,  remaining  exclusively  with 
the  States,  and  is  consequently  one  of  those  intended  by  the  Con 
stitution,  to  be  placed  under  his  protection. 

It  must  be  added,  however,  that  unless  the  President's  mind 
on  a  view  of  every  thing,  which  is  urged  for  or  against  this  bill, 
is  tolerably  clear,  that  it  is  unauthorized  by  the  Constitution,  if 
the  pro  and  the  con  hang  so  even  as  to  balance  this  judgment, 
a  just  respect  for  the  wisdom  of  the  legislature,  would  natu 
rally  desire  the  balance  in  favor  of  their  opinion.  It  is  chiefly 
for  cases  where  they  are  clearly  misled  by  error,  ambition,  or  in 
terest,  that  the  Constitution  has  placed  a  check  in  the  negative 
of  the  President. 

Feb'y  15,  1791.  THOS.  JEFFERSON. 


The  Constitution  makes  gold  and  silver  the  only  legal  tender 
in  payment  of  debt. 

The  word  pay,  means  to  return  something,  for  something  else 
of  equal  value. 

A  promissory  note  may  be  an  equivalent  in  expectancy,  but  a 
promise  to  pay  is  not  payment,  whether  made  by  individual  or 
the  government. 

Governments  may,  as  heretofore,  use  a  diversity  of  substances 
for  money;  leather,  iron,  tobacco,  gold  and  silver;  but  it  must 
be  something  more  than  a  promise  to  pay. 

To  carry  out  the  Constitution,  Congress  has  the  power  "  to  coin 
money."  Upon  this  single  and  restricted  power,  the  foundations 
of  our  agriculture,  commerce,  manufactures  and  every  other  in 
terest  was  laid. 

A  paper  currency  had  ruined  a  generation  of  the  noblest  of 
our  race.  Continental  money,  yet  unredeemed,  was  lying  in  the 
drawers  of  the  rich  and  the  poor,  who  had  been  made  poor  by  its 
insolvency. 

The  paper  subterfuge  had  been  a  failure  everywhere.  It  had 
made  no  promise  which  it  had  not  broken  a  thousand  times  else 
where. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  371 

They  wisely  made  their  money  of  the  precious  metals,  and 
stamped  it  with  a  fixed  value.  A  departure  from  this  standard 
by  the  employment  of  banks  as  the  disbursing  agent  of  the  gov 
ernment,  had  paralyzed  its  energy  in  universal  bankruptcy. 

The  whole  subject  was  elaborately  presented  in  his  most  forci 
ble  style,  by  Mr.  Clay,  who  had  served  in  Congress  with  the 
great  men  of  the  revolution,  and  led  for  a  full  generation,  the 
ablest  of  all  our  statesmen  in  the  most  brilliant  history  of  the 
American  Congress. 

MR.  CLAY'S  VIEWS  OF  THE  CONSTITUTIONALITY  OF  A  NA 
TIONAL  BANK,   IN  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES,    IN    1811. 

"  The  vagrant  power  to  erect  a  bank,  after  having  wandered 
through  the  whole  Constitution  in  quest  of  some  congenial  spot 
to  fasten  upon,  has  been,  at  length,  located  by  the  gentleman  from 
Georgia,  on  that  provision  which  authorizes  Congress  to  lay  and 
collect  taxes.  In  1791,  the  power  is  referred  to  one  part  of  the 
instrument;  in  1811,  to  another.  Sometimes  it  is  alleged  to  be 
deducible  from  the  power  to  regulate  commerce.  Hard  pressed 
here,  it  appears  and  shows  itself  under  the  grant  to  coin  money. 
What  is  the  nature  of  this  government  ?  It  is  emphatically 
federal,  vested  with  an  aggregate  of  specified  powers  for  general 
purposes,  conceded  by  existing  sovereignties,  who  have  them 
selves  retained  what  is  not  so  conceded.  It  is  said  there  are  cases 
in  which  it  must  act  on  implied  powers.  This  is  not  contro 
verted,  but  the  implication  must  be  necessary,  and  obviously  flow 
from  the  enumerated  powers  with  which  it  is  allied.  The  power 
to  charter  companies  is  not  specified  in  the  grant,  and  I  contend, 
is  of  a  nature  not  transferable  by  mere  implication.  In  the  ex 
ercise  of  this  gigantic  power,  we  have  seen  an  East  India  Com 
pany  erected,  which  has  carried  dismay,  desolation  and  death, 
throughout  one  of  the  largest  portions  of  the  habitable  world, — 
a  company  which  is  in  itself  a  sovereignty ;  which  has  subvert 
ed  empires,  and  set  up  new  dynasties,  and  has  not  only  made 
.  war,  but  war  against  its  legitimate  sovereign !  Under  the  in 
fluence  of  this  power,  we  have  seen  arise  a  South  Sea  Company, 


372  CEIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

and  a  Mississippi  Company,  that  distracted  and  convulsed  all 
Europe,  and  menaced  a  total  overthrow  of  all  credit  and  'confi 
dence,  and  to  produce  universal  bankruptcy.  Is  it  to  be  imagin 
ed  that  a  power  so  vast  would  have  been  left  by  the  Constitution,, 
to  doubtful  inference  ?  It  has  been  alleged  that  there  are  many 
instances  in  the  Constitution,  where  powers,  in  their  nature  in 
cidental,  and  which  would  necessarily  have  been  vested  along 
with  the  principal,  are,  nevertheless,  expressly  enumerated ;  and 
the  power  to  make  rules  and  regulations  for  the  government  of 
the  land  and  naval  forces,  which,  it  is  said,  is  incidental  to  the 
power  to  raise  armies,  and  provide  a  navy,  is  given  as  an  exam 
ple.  What  does  this  prove?  How  extremely  cautious  the  Con 
vention  were  to  leave  as  little  as  possible  to  implications.  In  all 
cases  where  incidental  powers  are  acted  upon,  the  principal  and 
incidental  ought  to  be  congenial  with  each  other,  and  partake  of 
a  common  nature.  The  incidental  power  ought  to  be  strictly 
subordinate  and  limited  to  the  end  proposed  to  be  attained  by 
the  specific  power.  In  other  words,  under  the  name  of  accom 
plishing  one  object,  which  is  specified,  the  power  implied  ought 
not  to  be  made  to  embrace  other  objects,  which  are  not  specified 
in  the  Constitution.  If,  then,  as  it  is  contended,  you  could  es 
tablish  a  bank  to  collect  and  distribute  the  revenue,  it  ought  to 
be  expressly  restricted  to  the  purpose  of  such  collection  and  dis 
tribution. 

It  is  mockery,  worse  than  usurpation,  to  establish  it  for  a  law 
ful  object,  which  is  not  lawful.  In  deducing  the  power  to  create 
corporations,  such  as  I  have  described  it,  from  the  power  to  lay 
and  collect  taxes,  the  relation  and  condition  of  principal  and  in 
cident,  are  prostrated  and  destroyed.  The  accessory  is  exalted 
above  the  principal.  As  well  it  might  be  said  that  the  great  lu 
minary  of  day  is  accessory,  a  satellite  to  the  humblest  star  that 
twinkles  forth  its  feeble  light  in  the  firmament  of  heaven.  Look 
at  it  in  another  aspect.  Seven-tenths  of  its  capital  are  in  the 
hands  of  foreigners,  chiefly  English  subjects.  We  are  possibly 
on  the  eve  of  a  rupture  with  that  nation.  Should  such  an  event 
occur,  do  you  apprehend  that  the  English  premier  would  expe 
rience  any  difficulty  in  obtaining  the  entire  control  of  this  insti 
tution?  Republics,  above  all  other  governments,  ought  most 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  37*3 

seriously  to  guard  against  foreign  influence.  All  history  proves 
that  the  internal  dissensions  excited  by  foreign  intrigue,  have 
produced  the  downfall  of  almost  every  free  government  that  has 
hitherto  existed ;  and  yet  gentlemen  contend  that  we  are  benefit 
ed  by  the  possession  of  this  foreign  capital." 

Prophecy  never  foretold  human  fortunes  better.  It  is  the 
most  painful  of  all  our  present  evils,  that  Europe  holds  a  large 
amount  of  American  bonds,  and  has  loaned  them  to  Americans, 
as  the  basis  of  bank  stock. 

These  European  bondholders  are  largely  in  the  interest  of  both 
the  political  parties  and  at  all  the  nominating  boards.  The  agents 
of  European  capital  will  freely  lavish  their  money,  and  corrupt 
every  sentiment  of  American  democracy  and  republicanism  to 
control  American  politics. 

In  any  event  of  foreign  complication,  the  interests  of  capital 
will  be  subsidized  by  European  Powers  and  agencies. 

These  banking  institutions  are  under  a  most  alarming  Euro 
pean  espionage,  and  all  legislation  is  accessible  to  this  influence. 

England  can  preserve  Ireland  through  the  bond  stock  of  her 
bankers. 

Austria  hold  her  grasp  tighter  on  Hungary,  through  her  cap 
ital.  Bismarck  will  be  stronger  through  this  system  of  mon 
opoly. 

The  whole  change  in  our  manners  and  morals  to  that  of  des 
potism,  had  its  origin  in  the  funding  system. 

Our  affinity  for  Russia  against  Poland,  was  the  legitimate  off 
spring  of  a  funding  system  which  made  serfs  of  laborers,  robbed 
one-half  of  the  country  of  its  representation,  and  elevated  bar 
barians  to  the  office  and  status  of  citizens. 


374  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAK. 


CHAPTER  II. 

NATIONAL  BANKS  UNNECESSARY. 

CONFIDENCE  is  THE  FOUNDATION  OF  THE  BANKING  SYS 
TEM. 

This  is  not  the  mere  calculating  logic  of  the  usurer,  based  upon 
facts,  figures,  and  responsible  securities.  The  confidence  of  the 
public  credits,  for  I  shall  call  him  such,  is  of  a  much  higher  and 
more  sublimated  character.  He  must  believe  that  the  man  who 
owes  him  three  dollars,  with  first  one  dollar  to  pay  it,  makes  his 
debt  abundantly  secure. 

That  John  Law  redeemed  eighty  dollars  of  his  Mississippi 
stocks  at  par,  with  one  dollar  in  gold,  or  that  our  immense  cir 
culation  of  paper  money  may  be  readily  redeemed  in  gold  and 
silver  coin. 

He  must  be  willing  to  imperil  the  wages  of  his  labor,  the 
price  of  his  property,  the  sanctity  of  his  homestead,  the  profits 
of  his  business  and  support  of  his  family,  in  promises  to  pay 
from  a  system  which  has  regularly,  every  decade,  bankrupted 
itself,  depreciated  its  entire  value  and  scattered  distress  in  every 
avenue  of  business  and  trade,  throughout  the  whole  range  of  its 
circulation. 

He  must  believe  that  a  faithful  promise  to  pay,  which  never 
has  been  and  never  can  be  paid,  except  in  the  exchange  of  one 
false  promise,  for  many,  each  alike,  beyond  the  reach  of  redemp 
tion.  Both  Law  and  Robespierre  declared  that  their  paper  sys 
tem  would  be  successful,  if  the  people  would  give  it  their  un 
limited  confidence,  which,  in  other  words,  means  that  the  bank 
notes  are  unquestionably  solvent  if  there  is  never  any  demand 
for  payment,  which  holds  equally  good  of  all  other  obligations, 
and  which  plan,  if  duly  followed  out,  would  ensure  the  solvency 
of  all  obligations  whatever. 


CKIMES   OP  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  375 

The  destruction  of  the  old  United  States  bank,  had  made  the 
name  of  Andrew  Jackson  illustrious  among  his  political  ad 
mirers,  as  a  statesman,  as  it  had  been  before  immortal  as  a  hero. 
His  fame  was  a  guarantee  to  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
that  a  system  of  speculative  banking  should  never  be  revived 
under  the  auspices  of  the  government. 

The  existence  of  such  a  monstrous  fraud  upon  the  currency, 
credit,  and  industry  of  the  country,  as  the  new  banking  system, 
could  have  found  no  standing-place  but  for  these  bonds,  which 
were  made  for  that  purpose. 

The  paper  issued  by  these  banks,  is  the  first  certain  step  to 
ward  repudiation.  It  is  not  a  legal  tender,  and  is  morever,  sub 
ject  to  all  of  the  fluctuations  incident  to  any  other  mere  paper 
currency. 

It  is  not  and  cannot  be  adequately  secured1  against  deprecia 
tion.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  form  of  repudiation  which  in  every  ten 
years  changes  bv  the  misfortune  of  trade,  the  full  half  of  the 
capital  of  the  country,  from  the  hands  of  the  producer  and  legiti 
mate  retainer,  to  the  hands  of  the  speculator,  stock  gamblers,  and 
adventurers. 

No  system  of  paper  money  can  be  solvent,  unless  it  be  a  cur 
rency  fairly  based  upon  the  business  credit  of  a  good  man  or 
corporation,  firmly  secured  by  indestructible  property ;  but  this 
can  never  be  done,  for  such  a  currency  should  be  based  upon  the 
positive  capital,  and  not  the  indebtedness  of  the  government. 

There  can  be  neither  argument  or  apology  successfully  made 
for  the  issue  of  money,  either  by  or  under  the  auspices  of  the 
government,  against  the  direct  and  unequivocal  prohibition  of 
the  Constitution.  The  entire  absence  of  a  circulating  medium 
for  the  transaction  of  business,  may  be  plead  as  a  necessity ;  but 
this  could  never  occur  in  a  fair  administration  of  government,  con 
trolled  by  constitutional  laws.  Such  gold-commanding  staples, 
as  cotton,  tobacco,  hemp,  sugar,  rice,  and  gold  mines  —  which 
rival  the  wealth  of  Ophir  and  pour  a  steady  stream  of  the  pre 
cious  metals  into  the  lap  of  the  public  treasury — administered  by 
statesmen,  with  integrity,  could  command  the  gold  of  the  world. 

Necessity,  the  profligate  prostitute,  whose  shameless  face  is  not 
abashed  to  hold  up  her  hideous,  nameless,  mongrel  offspring,  as 


376  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

tlie  proper  and  legitimate  children  of  chance,  stands  ready  to 
plead  for  banking,  just  as  she  pleads  for  murder  by  military 
commission,  robbery  by  arbitrary  taxation,  and  every  other  form 
of  crime  convenient  or  subservient  for  the  purposes  of  power. 

Governments,  like  individuals,  when  unable  to  pay  her  debts, 
may  give  evidences  of  indebtedness,  and  ours  may,  with  much 
more  show  of  candor  than  of  constitutional  authority,  issue  treas 
ury  notes  as  legal  tender.  But  for  the  establishment  of  banks, 
there  can  be  neither  constitutional  authority  or  sound  argument. 
Bankruptcy,  the  certain  prelude  of  repudiation,  must  follow  in 
evitably. 

The  revolutionary  audacity  which  hesitates  at  no  wrong,  and 
scruples  at  no  adventure,  will  scarcely  assume  to  make  this 
worthless  bank  paper  a  legal  tender  without  a  change  of  the 
Constitution. 

It  is  incomprehensible,  that  in  the  infinite  amendments  offer 
ed  to  the  Constitution,  that  this  one  has  not  been  proposed  to 
force  the  creditor  to  accept  "  national  bank "  notes  as  a  legal 
tender  in  payment  of  debts,  and  compel  him  to  pay  his  taxes  in 
gold  and  silver,  just  as  treasury  notes  were  forced  upon  the  peo 
ple  as  a  legal  tender,  yet  were  not  received  in  payment  of  duties, 
which  was  perhaps  the  only  reason  why  they  should  be  issued 
by  the  general  government,  as  money  at  all,  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  commercial  business  of  the  country. 

This  national  bank  currency  was  substituted  for  the  treasury 
notes,  which  were  made  a  legal  tender  by  Congressional  legisla 
tion,  only  to  make  way  for  the  issue  of  bonds. 

At  every  point  of  this  tangled  jungle  of  controversy,  new 
questions  arise,  which  are  best  answered  as  they  come  legiti 
mately  up. 

1.  The  banks  were  not  necessary  as  banks  of  issue,  to  give  to  the 
people,  a  circulating  medium,  for  these  two  obvious  reasons : 

First.  These  bank  notes  were  not  and  could  not  be  made  a 
legal  tender  in  the  payment  of  debts,  under  the  most  liberal  or 
even  extravagant  interpretation  of  the  Constitution,  and,  as  such, 
added  nothing  to  the  circulating  medium,  nor  contributed  in  any 
manner  whatever,  to  the  wealth,  business,  or  industry  of  the 
country. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  377 

Second.  The  "  NATIONAL  BANK  "  notes  supplanted  and  drove 
from  circulation  the  treasury  notes  which,  by  law,  were  made 
legal  tender  in  the  payment  of  debts ;  and  whether  constitutional 
or  not,  met  the  existing  wants  of  the  people,  as  accepted  by  them 
in  the  transaction  of  business,  and  to  which  they  had  accommo 
dated  themselves. 

Third.  The  national  banks  are  a  nuisance  in  their  character 
as  banks  of  issue,  from  the  two  foregoing  considerations ;  since  every 
national  bank  note,  if  redeemed  at  all,  must  be  redeemed  in  treas 
ury  notes,  denominated  a  legal  tender.  Then  why  not  give  to 
the  people  the  treasury  notes  as  a  valid  legal  tender,  as  a  circu 
lating  medium,  directly  from  the  United  States  treasury,  instead 
of  Jndirectly  through  bonds,  corporations,  usurers,  extortioners, 
and  banks,  as  an  invalid  currency,  which  is  not  a  legal  tender. 


378  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CHAPTER  III. 

No  BANKING  SYSTEM  CAN  BE  MADE  SECURE. 
THE  PEOPLE  HAVE  NO  SECUEITY  IN  ANY  SYSTEM   OF  BANK 

PAPER;  HAVE  LOST  IMMENSE  AMOUNTS  BY  THE  BANKING 
SYSTEM,  WHICH  STAND  AS  AN  IRRESISTIBLE  ARGUMENT 
AGAINST  THE  SYSTEM  ITSELF. 

Among  all  of  the  illustrious  men  who  have  filled  the  office  of 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  there  was  scarcely  the  superior  of  Judge 
Woodbury,  who,  whether  as  Governor,  Senator,  Secretary  or  Judge, 
was  alike  of  integrity,  above  suspicion,  and  intellect  profound 
and  broad,  who  administered  the  affairs  of  the  Treasury  in  the 
most  critical  period  of  our  financial  history,  with  an  ability  never 
excelled.  The  judgment  of  such  a  man  transmitted  as  a  treas 
ure  to  posterity,  is  a  landmark  of  science.  In  times  like  these, 
such  well-matured  opinions  ought  to  guide  our  deliberations. 
To  this  great  statesman  we  are  indebted  for  the  following  table 
of  the  aggregate  losses  since  1798,  to  the  people,  through  the 
existence  of  banks,  and  the  use  of  bank  paper : 

1.  Losses  through  banks  that  have  failed  since 

1798  on  their  capital,  circulation  and  deposits $108,000,000 

2.  Losses  by  depreciation  on  bank  notes  through 
suspension  of  specie  payments  by  banks $  95,000,000 

3.  Losses  by  destruction  of  bank  notes  by  ac 
cident 7,121,332 

4.  The  losses  through  counterfeit  notes,  from 
1790  to  1841,  over  and  above  what  would  have 

been  on  coin , $  112,220,400 

5.  Amount  of  interest  paid  to  banks  for  the 

use  of  banking  institutions $1400,000,000 

6.  Losses  by  fluctuations  from  bank  currency, 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  379 

affecting  prices  of  living,  sacrifices  of  property  at 

sheriffs7  sales,  from  1790  up  to  1860 $  300,000,000 

Total $2,022,341,332 

The  process  of  the  losses  are  very  easily  illustrated.  Sup 
pose  the  currency  of  the  United  States  amounts  to  $700,000,000 
at  any  given  time;  the  currency  is  quoted  at  150;  within  one 
month  it  falls  in  quotation  to  125,  of  one-sixth  of  the  whole 
amount  of  currency,  $116,666,666:  somebody  loses  this,  but 
this  is  true  of  the  fluctuation  on  shorter  and  smaller  amounts. 
In  the  course  of  the  year  they  amount  to  full  one  hundred  per  cent., 
counting  the  advances  and  declines  of  the  market.  Leaving  all 
of  this  entirely  out  of  the  account,  which  is  so  transparent,  the 
amount  of  losses  duly  computed  foot  up  the  enormous  sum 

of $1927,341,732 

Amount  lost  by  legal  tender,  national  banks  and 

bonds  during  the  last  five  years $1999,000,000 

The  enormous  sum  of. $3,926,341,732 

There  are  several  other  matters  incidental  in  the  history  of 
the  American  banking  system,  among  which  may  be  named  the 
fact  that  the  amount  of  capital  upon  which  issues  are  made,  is 
never  paid  in,  and  very  often  not  ten  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
amount  is  ever  connected  with  the  bank. 

The  process  is  a  very  simple  one.  The  borrower  and  the 
lender  exchanges  notes  ;  the  borrower  pays  a  heavy  per  cent,  to 
the  bank  for  loaning  his  security,  and  the  banker  actually  lives 
upon  the  interest  of  what  he  owes,  and  finally,  when  pay-day 
comes,  the  bank  note  must  be  redeemed  by  the  money  of  the 
borrower,  who  pays  the  banker's  debts,  and  the  banker  draws 
the  interest.  The  banker  is  a  middle-man,  authorized  by  law  to 
rob  the  public.  The  national  bank  notes  have  no  credit  which 
the  government  does  not  bestow  upon  them.  From  January, 
1866,  to  January,  1867,  the  national  banks  drew  from  the  Treas 
ury,  interest  on  $300,000,000,  amounting  to  $18,000,000;  in 
1868  the  banks  will  get  interest  on  that  $18,000,000,  $1,080,000, 
in  addition  to  the  $18,000,000,  $19,080,000,  making  in  all 
$37,080,000. 


380  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

In  1869,  the  banks  will  draw  their  interest  on  the  $300,000,- 
000  — §18,000,000,  also  on  the  $37,080,000  —  $2,224,800 ;  total, 
$57,309,800.  In  1870,  on  the  $300,000,000,  $18,000,000,  and 
on  $37,080,000,  making  a  total  of  $78,743,088— carried  onto 
the  year  1906,  the  interest,  with  its  compoundings,  will  amount 
to  the  enormous  sum  of  $2,739,000,000.  But  to  this  must  be 
added  the  interest  compounded  in  the  form  of  discount  in  bank 
notes.  To  the  people  the  sum  is  incalculable,  and  would  bank 
rupt  any  people  under  heavens,  and  reduces  the  question  to  one 
of  time ;  simply  when  the  explosion  must  come. 

The  expedient  of  a  national  bank  is  never  a  good  one.  Judge 
Woodbury  says  :  "  It  is  equally  vain  to  expect  relief  from  a  na 
tional  bank  of  any  kind.  Aside  from  its  unconstitutionality  and 
dangers  to  public  liberty,  I  will  merely  say  as  to  the  constitutional 
question,  that  the  States  rights  man,  or  democrat,  of  1798,  who 
can  swallow  this  new  fiscal  bank  as  constitutional,  could  swallow 
both  Jonah  and  the  whale,  as  the  whale  did  Jonah  alone"  This 
was  said  of  a  bank  merely.  What  possible  argument  could 
statesmen  offer  in  apology  for  such  a  costly  infernal  machine  as 
that  which  now  "  grinds  the  faces  of  the  poor  "  under  the  name 
of  "  National  Bank  "  ?  The  history  of  the  whole  transaction  is 
one  of  incredibility. 

Under  this  system  Congress  issued  Treasury  notes,  and  declared 
them  a  legal  tender.  The  people  had  conformed  their  business 
to  this  condition  of  things.  Under  the  independent  Treasury 
system,  the  Congress  issued  Treasury  notes,  payable  on  demand 
in  other  notes,  or  pledged  to  receive  them  in  payment  of  postage, 
duties,  etc.,  and  other  of  these  notes  it  put  on  the  public  at  com 
pound  interest. 

These  notes  would  have  been  a  failure  in  the  beginning,  but 
for  the  application  of  such  coercive  legislation  as  was  used  by 
John  Law  and  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  to  sustain  the  Mississippi 
bubble,  and  brought  by  Robespierre  and  Mirabeau  to  give  cur 
rency  to  the  assignats  and  mandats.  The  first  of  these  expe 
dients  was  to  declare  these  Treasury  notes  a  legal  tender  in 
the  payment  of  debts  which  had  been  contracted  in  gold  and 
silver,  though  they  were  at  a  discount  of  sixty  per  cent.  For 
this  there  was  no  law.  There  could  be  no  law  for  such  purpose. 


CHIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR.  381 

But  this  difficulty  was  readily  disposed  of.    Martial  law  was  de 
clared.     The  property  of  the  country  was  under  military  rule, 
at  the  mercy  of  any  upstart  military   official.     Wherever  the 
army  might  be  brought  to  oppress  the  people,  those  who  had 
property  found  it  best  to  surrender  it  without  cavil.     Slungshots, 
bludgeons,  were  the  only  arguments  used  by  these  gentlemen  in 
their  determination  of  cases.     In  the  courts  he  could  find  no 
redress   for   grievances ;    they,    too,   were   under   martial    law. 
Every  judicial  officer  of  character  was  harassed  at  every  point, 
if  known  to  be  in  opposition  to  the  party  in  power.     The  best 
men  of  the  bench  were  imprisoned ;  the  others  willingly  yielded 
to  the  pressure,  and  the  government  was  careful  not  to  raise  the 
question  of  the  legality  of  the  paper  money,  and  the  opposition 
dared  not.     Although  the  issue  of  this  currency  as  a  legal  tender 
was  a  stupendous  fraud,  which  wrought  great  injustice  upon  its 
victims,  yet  the  people  framed  their  contracts,  adjusted  their 
business,  and  arranged  their  affairs,  in  view  of  the  necessity  of 
receiving  these  notes  in  payment  of  debts  and  fulfilment  of  con 
tracts.     They  learned  to  accommodate  the  price  of  their  grain, 
the  wages  of  labor,  the  value  of  merchandise,  and  the  business 
of  the  country,  to  the  new  and  sorrowful  condition   of  things 
which  was  now  upon  us.     In  doing  this  the  loss  of  debts,  the 
sacrifice  of  business,  the  depreciation  of  property,  and  all  the 
concomitants  of  a  change  of  currency,  were  endured  by  the  people, 
especially  the  laboring  masses.     Congress  had  no  power  to  issue 
notes  as  money.     The  power  of  Congress  is  specific,  and  limited 
in  these  words  :  "  To  coin  money,  and  regulate  the  value  there 
of,  and  of  foreign  coin,  and  fix  the  standards  of  weight  and 
measures,  to  provide  for  the  punishment  of  counterfeiting  ihe 
securities  and  coin  of  the  United  States." 

"  No  State  shall  coin  money,  emit  bills  of  credit,  or  make 
anything  but  gold  and  silver  coin  a  tender  in  payment  of  debts, 
in  defiance  of  this  clear  provision  of  the  Constitution.  This 
question  is  so  clear,  and  is  stated  so  explicitly,  that  it  defies  the 
possibility  of  argument  to  add  to  it  conclusions.  In  regard  to 
Treasury  notes  for  the  temporary  purposes  of  meeting  the  cur 
rent  wants  and  expenses  of  the  government,  but  not  as  a  legal 
tender,  Albert  Gallatin  says:  "Used  as  soberly  as  they  have 


382  CRIMES   OF   THE  CIVIL   WAR. 

been  of  late  years  by  the  Treasury  department,  and  provided 
they  are  kept  at  par,  they  are  the  most  convenient  mode  of  sup 
plying  a  temporary  deficiency  in  revenue,  as  well  as  the  most 
convenient  substitute  for  currency  in  the  payment  of  debts." 
.Keeping  these  notes  at  par  is  not  only  the  measure  of  the  capa 
city  of  a  nation  to  sustain  her  credit,  but  it  is  the  only  just  and 
fair  criterion  by  which  a  nation  may  determine  the  point  at 
which  her  debt  must  cease  to  accumulate,  to  preserve  her  from 
excessive  taxation.  Of  the  debt,  Gallatin  says :  "  A  public 
debt  was  always  an  evil  to  be  avoided  whenever  practicable ; 
hardly  ever  justifiable,  except  in  time  of  war.  It  has  a  tenden 
cy,  perhaps  more  than  any  other  cause,  to  concentrate  the  national 
wealth  into  the  hands  of  a  small  number  of  individuals,  and  it 
feeds  the  drones  of  society."  George  Washington  did  not  hesi 
tate  to  denounce  the  bondholders  of  the  Revolution  as  "IDLERS, 
USURERS  and  EXTORTIONERS." 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  383 


CHAPTER  IY. 

THE  FIRST  GREAT  CRIME  OF  THE  CHASE  BANKING  SYSTEM. 

THE  NATIONAL  BANKS  ARE  A  GLARING  FRAUD,  to  which 
the  Government  HAS  MADE  ITSELF  A  CRIMINAL  PARTY  IN  OP 
PRESSING  THE  PEOPLE. 

First. — The  Bondholders,  who  are  the  Bankers,  are  secured 
in  the  payment  of  their  bonds,  in  legal  tender,  to  the  full  amount 
of  their  face. 

In  the  second  place,  the  note-holders  have  no  adequate  secu 
rity  for  the  redemption  of  the  notes,  or  any  reliable  guaranty 
against  depreciation. 

The  Banking  system  as  now  organized,  was  an  unnecessary  ob 
struction  to  the  circulation  of  paper  money,  an  oppressive  rob 
bery  of  the  people  by  the  Government,  in  conspiracy  with  spec 
ulators. 

The  crime  of  the  system  has  been  threefold.  First,  in  issu 
ing  any  treasury  notes  at  all,  under  the  general  system  of  coer 
cion  adopted  as  the  theory  of  the  Government  by  their  own  in 
terpretation  of  the  Constitution. 

If  they  had  the  right  to  coerce  a  State  by  physical  force,  and 
the  right  to  coerce  soldiers  by  conscription,  to  be  employed  in  the 
coercion  of  a  State,  then,  inasmuch  as  the  laws  and  institutions 
of  a  State,  and  the  life  of  a  human  being,  are  of  greater  value 
than  their  money,  they  had  the  right  to  enforce  loans  from  the 
rich  to  carry  on  the  war ;  which  would  have  preserved  prices  at 
their  usual  rates,  except  the  rise  in  value  consequent  upon  the 
increased  demand  upon  articles  of  trade.  But  this  they  did  not 
do ;  and  by  their  unwise  course,  the  Government,  in  issuing  fab 
ulous  sums  of  Treasury  notes,  not  only  oppressed  the  poor  with 
high  prices  for  all  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  but  also  increased 
the  price  of  everything  which  was  bought  for  its  own  use,  which 
was  oppressive  upon  both  the  Government  and  the  poor  people. 


384  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

But  at  the  same  time,  this  very  inflation  of  money  was  of  the 
greatest  advantage  to  the  rich,  who,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
ending  of  the  war,  contributed  nothing  of  their  wealth.  As  the 
currency  depreciated,  the  rich  put  their  gold  into  the  market, 
which  was  rated  worth  as  high  as  two  hundred  and  eighty-nine 
cents  in  Treasury  notes  for  each  dollar  of  gold  or  silver.  While 
the  poor  were  bearing  the  burdens  of  the  war,  paying  this  heavy 
corresponding  advance  on  all  that  they  ate  and  wore,  furnishing 
their  ablest-bodied  men  to  make  out  the  monthly  butcher's  bill 
of  the  horrible  war.  The  rich  were  coining  money  from  their 
idle  capital  hoarded  in  their  drawers. 

This  was  the  first  crime  premeditatedly  committed,  to  prepare 
for  the  second  crime.  If  this  issue  of  treasury  notes  had  not 
been  made,  specie  payments  need  not  have  been  suspended,  and 
the  losses  of  the  war  would  have  been  confined  to  the  army  and 
their  ravages,  making  due  calculation  for  the  loss  of  labor,  di 
version  of  capital,  and  destruction  of  commerce  in  the  conflict 
of  arms. 

Up  to  the  commencement  of  the  war,  in  1861,  for  a  period  of 
a  full  quarter  of  a  century,  the  Independent  Treasury  system 
had  carried  us  safely  along,  embracing  a  period  of  war  with  a 
Foreign  Power. 

It  was  a  divorce  between  the  Government  and  the  Banking 
system,  which  drained  the  pockets  of  the  people  and  distracted 
the  business  of  the  country.  The  Independent  Treasury  system 
made  the  business  of  the  country  independent  in  its  relations  to 
the  financial  managers,  and  threw  speculators  upon  their  own  re 
sources,  for  means  to  carry  on  their  own  vocation. 

The  great  objects  of  the  Independent  Treasury  system  was  to 
place  it  out  of  the  power  of  the  combination  of  Capital,  to  coerce 
the  Government,  and  make  the  legislation  of  the  country  inde 
pendent.  From  a  specie  basis  there  never  should  have  been  a 
departure.  In  no  departure  from  this,  is  there  either  profit  or 
safety  to  the  Government,  or  to  the  people.  Until  the  return, 
no  difference  at  what  apparent  cost  it  may  be,  all  business  is  im 
perilled. 

Under  pretext  of  necessity  and  under  cover  of  the  Independ 
ent  Treasury  system,  Congress  issued  the  Treasury  notes  and  de- 


CHIMES   OP   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  385 

clared  them  a  legal  tender,  and  after  exceeding  inconvenience, 
which  is  always  incident  to  a  change  of  the  basis  and  character 
of  a  national  currency,  the  people  conformed  their  business  to 
the  altered  condition  of  things. 

THE  SECOND  CHIME  WAS  COMMITTED  UNDER  PRETENCE  OF 
GETTING  RID  OF  THE  EVILS  OF  THE  FIRST. 

Just  when  the  People  had  adjusted  the  trade  of  the  country  to 
the  character  of  the  currency,  this  new  National  Banking  System 
was  projected  as  a  means  of  relief,  and  pretext  for  perpetual 
speculation  and  stock-gambling  upon  the  industry  of  the  laborer 
and  economy  of  the  frugal. 

This  was  done  covertly,  and  by  the  most  scandalous  false  pre 
tense. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  conspiracy  with  the  Bank 
ers  of  the  country,  created  the  public  debt,  which  reached  an 
amount  incomprehensible  and  incalculable  by  figures,  which 
makes  the  head  dizzy  in  contemplation.  The  conspirators  raised 
the  hue  and  cry  about  the  inflation  of  the  currency,  high  prices 
and  paper  money,  which  should  be  contracted  to  a  healthy 
amount  and  condition. 

The  contraction  of  the  currency  was  made  even  more  remu 
nerative  than  the  inflation. 

The  bankers,  brokers,  extortioners,  usurers,  and  stock  gam 
blers,  united  in  conspiracy  with  public  officers  in  immediate  prox 
imity  to  the  Treasury  and  revenue,  to  deprecate  the  profligate 
redundancy  of  the  currency,  and  immediately  went  to  work  to 
buy  up  the  outstanding  notes  which  were  drawing  no  interest 
and  were  serving  the  purposes  of  a  circulating  medium  as  well 
as  any  other  mere  paper  currency  could  do  which  promised  no 
coin  as  a  basis  of  redemption,  and  much  better  than  any  substi 
tute  which  was  not  a  legal  tender  in  the  payment  of  debts. 

But  the  redundancy  in  the  currency  was  the  ruinous  evil  com 
plained  of  by  the  conspirators,  and  the  only  conceivable  remedy 
was  the  contraction  of  its  volume. 


25 


386  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CHAPTER   Y. 

THE  SECOND  GREAT  CRIME  OF  CHASE'S  BANKING  SYSTEM. 

THE  ISSUE  OF  BONDS  WAS  THE  SECOND  CRIME  AND  THE 
REMEDY  PROPOSED  FOR  THE  EXPANSION. 

This  was  perpetrated  by  a  series  of  crimes  which,  step  by  step, 
paved  the  way  for  the  second  robbery  of  the  people ;  at  the  same 
time  divesting  them  of  a  possibility  of  any  remedy  whatever. 

I.  The  primary  movement  was  the  adoption  of  the  funding 
system  and  the  issue  of  bonds  as  the  only  possible  means  of 
creating  a  permanent  and  varied  aristocracy,  without  the  know 
ledge  of  the  people,  or  the  necessity  of  its  incorporation  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States ;  a  measure  for  which  the  pub 
lic  mind  was  not  yet  prepared  nor  well  in  the  course  of  prepara 
tion.     No  special  titles  of  nobility  are  tolerated.     Any  other 
wealth  is  evanescent,  measured  by  success  in  business. 

Fortune  or  misfortune  plays  at  her  will,  and  whim,  with  the 
accumulations  of  industry,  the  grasp  of  avarice,  and  over-reach 
ing  speculation.  But  this  funding  system  will  make  an  aristoc 
racy  permanent  and  oifensive.  It  places  labor  at  the  disposal  of 
idlers,  and  make  serfs  of  all  laborers,  and  reduces  farmers  to 
mere  tenants  at  will. 

II.  This  aristocracy,  created  by  the  funding  system,  based  upon 
an  untaxed  mortgage  of  t}ie  property  and  labor  of  the  country, 
could  readily  ba  made  transmissible,  to  pass  from  sire  to  son. 
The  extortioners  and  usurers,  who  hold  their  mortgage  upon  the 
labor  of  the  present  generation,  will  transmit  their  bonds  to  their 
children,  to  pass  as  a  mortgage  upon  the  children  of  the  laborers 
who  now  pay  it,  inheriting  from  their  parents  only  the  right  to 
be  taxed. 

This  process  was  to  be  carried  out  and  to  be  paid  in  paper 
money,  until  age  had  made  the  debt  respectable  and  blotted  out 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  387 

its  shameful  history ;  until  arbitrary  power  has  crushed  out  the 
spirit  of  free  inquiry. 

This  matter  was  carefully  considered  in  laying  the  foundation 
for  a  perpetual  aristocracy  as  its  complete  basis. 

In  the  United  States,  there  was  not  ground-work,  other  than, 
the  funding  system. 

THERE  COULD  NOT  BE  A  MILITARY  ARISTOCRACY,  UNDER 
THE  FEDERAL  SYSTEM,  FOR  THESE  REASONS  :  First.  There 
were  too  many  military  men  in  the  country  alike  ambitious  of 
distinction,  and  lustful  of  power  to  invest  them  with  exclusive 
rule. 

Second.  The  jealousies  so  natural  to  military  men,  would  lead 
to  endless  divisions  in  such  an  organization,  and  the  original 
selections  of  military  officers  were  too  indiscriminate  for  such  a 
purpose. 

Third.  Money  was  required  as  the  basis  of  commanding  aris 
tocracy.  This  the  military  of  the  country  had  not,  and  more 
than  all,  it  was  impossible  to  transmit  an  aristocracy  of  this  kind, 
had  it  been  possible  —  which  it  was  not  —  to  create  it. 

THERE  COULD  NOT  BE  A  CLERICAL  ARISTOCRACY,  AS  IN 
GREAT  BRITAIN.  1st.  There  was  no  established  Church  and 
no  established  religion,  no  common  faith,  no  common  purposes 
of  organization. 

2d.  The  denominations  were  too  numerous,  and  in  all  the  ele 
ments  of  their  faith,  too  diverse,  and  in  their  organization,  too 
jealous  of  rivalry,  to  make  any  common  establishment  at  that 
time  possible. 

3d.  Like  the  military,  they  were  without  financial  establish 
ment  and  commanded  no  influence,  except  that  which  was  given 
them  by  their  wealthy  congregations. 

THE  CAPITALISTS  OF  THE  COUNTRY  were  the  only  elements 
out  of  which  to  create  a  perpetual  aristocracy,  who  could  trans 
mit  their  wealth  and  power  together,  as  the  Rothschilds  in 
Europe. 

1.  This  could  be  done  without  exciting  any  other  comment 
whatever,  during  their  establishment  and  after  it  had  been  estab 
lished.  Funding,  the  old  thorough  and  exacting  system  of  finan 
cial  slavery,  was  the  method  adopted  to  effect  this  purpose. 


388  CKIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

2.  This  made  the  bondholders  an  aristocracy  at  once,  without 
any  intervening  ceremonials.  The  ownership  of  the  bonds  had  a 
profound  meaning,  which  told  more  upon  the  material  interests 
of  the  country  than  stars  or  garters.  The  issue  of  the  bonds 
sealed  the  aristocracy  and  made  it  complete,  and  may  be  seen  in 
the  course  of  legislation,  in  every  department  of  the  govern 
ment,  in  every  part  of  the  country.  When  a  measure  of  legisla 
tion  is  called  up  before  Congress,  the  aristocracy  is  represented 
in  their  capital,  but  the  people  have  no  voice. 

When  a  tariff  of  duties  is  to  be  imposed,  the  manufacturers, 
with  their  attorneys,  are  heard  before  Congressional  committees, 
who  never  grow  poorer  by  their  presence.  But  the  poor  con 
sumers,  who  are  as  many  thousands  to  one,  are  never  heard ; 
they  have  no  voice,  no  representative. 

When  a  question  of  currency  is  involved,  the  presidents  of 
banks  go  as  a  caucus  to  inform  the  Congress  what  is  demanded 
for  the  general  good ;  but  the  millions,  whose  food  and  raiment 
are  dependent  upon  the  circulating  medium,  are  not  even  consult 
ed,  and  have  no  voice  raised  in  their  behalf. 

This  oligarchy  of  bondholders  is  worse  even  than  the  British 
aristocracy,  which  has  been  based  upon  noble  blood  or  distin 
guished  services,  which  must  preserve  its  self-respect  to  preserve 
its  existence,  and  seek  the  security  of  their  order  in  the  good 
will  of  the  people. 

The  American  aristocracy,  the  offspring  of  American  corrup 
tion,  has  a  supreme  will  over  the  mercenary  Congress  that 
gave  it  being,  who  are  but  the  supple  tools  of  the  various  forms 
of  the  capital  of  the  country. 

1.  This  aristocracy  of  wealth   has  not  only  its  own  inherent 
power,  but  it  has  the  hired  power  of  the  corrupted  clergy  which 
it  readily  controls,  as  they  are  dependent  upon  public  charity  for 
a  livelihood.     For,  of  out  of  the  twelve  chosen  by  the  Saviour, 
one  denied,  another  betrayed,  and  all,  except  two,  fled  from  their 
Master.     Think  not  strange  then,  of  corruptions  now. 

2.  It  effectually  controls   the   government,  and  with   it  the 
military ;  and  each  new  expense  of  hiring  mercenaries,  who  are 
ready  to  fight  for  anybody  or  anything,  which  will  pay  them, 
is  borne  by  the  people  in  new  taxes  added  to  those  that  already 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  389 

weigh  them  down,  of  which,  however,  the  bondholders  are  still 
exempt. 

In  the  creation  of  the  funding  system,  the  Congressmen  were 
duly  bribed  and  suborned,  and  are  now  nominated  through  the 
influence  of  capital,  which  avails  itself  of  party  frenzy;  which 
is  employed  as  motive  power  to  impel  the  machinery  of  party 
corruption.  Having  the  mercenary  clergy  under  their  control 
to  inflame  and  mislead  their  flocks,  they  can  then  set  the  mili 
tary  on  the  people,  who  will  gladly  pay  taxes  or  submit  to  any 
thing  to  get  rid  of  the  insult  and  plunder  of  a  soldiery,  who  will 
eventually  be  called  in  to  aid  the  execution  of  the  writs  of  the 
tax-gatherer.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  when  incomes 
fail  to  yield  revenue,  as  they  soon  must,  then  the  land  will  be 
sold  for  taxes,  and  the  bondholders  will  buy  them  up  with  in 
terest  on  the  bonds,  at  his  own  price. 

This  second  crime  has  given  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  such  a  style  of  government,  as  leaves  to  them  only  the  alter 
native  of  slavery  or  repudiation.  Already  have  these  issues 
been  made. 

II.  THE  MANNER  OP  THE  FUNDING  was  a  high-handed  rob 
bery  of  the  people,  even  greater  than  the  inflation  of  the  currency 
in  the  first  place. 

The  volume  of  the  currency  had  grown  to  such  enormous  pro 
portions,  that  treasury  notes  had  lost  their  entire  relative  value  to 
gold  and  silver.  Just  then  the  bonds  were  placed  upon  the  mar 
ket,  at  an  average  cost  ranging  from  thirty-five  to  fifty  cents  on 
the  dollar.  These  bonds  were  bought  up  and  paid  for  in  legal 
tender  notes. 

So  that,  by  an  edict  of  the  conspirators,  all  of  the  available 
capital  of  the  country  was  increased  from  two  to  three  hundred 
per  cent,  in  the  hands  of  its  owner,  and,  of  necessity,  all  of  the 
unavailable  capital,  or  real  estate  and  personal  property,  was  on 
the  same  proportion  actually  diminished,  as  the  bonds  thus  issued 
became  a  lien  upon  the  other  wealth  of  the  country. 

It  is  not  only  a  safe,  but  it  is  a  liberal  calculation  to  assume, 
that,  by  the  second  crime,  a  gift  of  at  least  one-half  of  the  whole 
funded  debt  of  the  United  States  was  made  to  the  capitalists,  on 
the  bonds  issued,  to  be  paid  by  the  extreme  poor  and  middling 


390  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

classes  in  stinting  their  daily  bread,  their  ordinary  wearing  ap 
parel  and  fuel.  As  the  funding  system  and  stock  gambling  has 
been  examined  elsewhere,  we  dismiss  this  subject  merely  with  this 
statement. 

III.  THE  PEIVILEGES  OF  THE  FUNDING  SYSTEM  was  a  silent 
crime,  the  real  enormity  of  which  was  not  well  understood  at  the 
time.  Itt  was  the  consummation  of  all  the  villainies  incident 
to  the  establishment  of  a  privileged  order.  These  bondholders, 
by  this  act,  were  placed  upon  a  level  with  the  old  French  aris 
tocracy  who  were  not  taxed,  the  very  fact  of  which  induced  the 
French  Revolution  ;  and  to  the  credit  of  our  fallen  race  be  it 
recorded,  that  just  this  crime  always  has,  and  surely  always  will, 
excite  rebellion  anywhere. 

There  was  another  manner  of  currency  the  cause  for  the  issue 
of  which,  no  national  exposition  has  ever  been  given,  nor,  perhaps, 
ever  will  be.  These  were  the  compound  interest  legal  tender 
notes  which  were  issued  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  war,  when  the 
bankers  feared  their  ability  to  sufficiently  involve  the  country,  as 
to  make  it  necessary  to  resort  to  the  funding  system.  There  was 
never  known  to  be  any  distinction  in  the  market,  or  current  value 
among  the  rural  populations,  between  the  legal  tender  and  the 
compound  interest,  nor  any  cause  for  their  issue. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  391 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  THIRD  GREAT  CRIME  OF  CHASE'S  BANKING  SYSTEM. 
THE  THIRD  CRIME  WHICH   CONSUMMATED   THE  WICKEDNESS 

OF  NATIONAL  BANKS,  WAS  PERPETRATED  UNDER  THE  PRE 
TENCE  THAT  THE  CURRENCY  HAD  BEEN  TOO  SUDDENLY  CON 
TRACTED.  For  they  had  no  sooner  bought  up  the  bonds,  than, 
they  discovered  the  country  needed  an  inflated  currency  to  pay 
an  inflated  public  debt. 

Then,  by  an  act  of  Congress,  approved  June  3,  1864,  the 
bonds  were  made  the  basis,  or  rather  the  pretext,  for  a  system  of 
National  Banking,  with  "  all  such  incidental  powers  as  shall  be 
necessary  to  carry  on  the  business  of  banking  by  discounting  and 
negotiating  promissory  notes,  drafts,  bills  of  exchange,  and  other 
evidences  of  debt  ;  by  receiving  deposites  ;  by  buying  and  selling 
exchange,  coin  and  bullion  ;  by  loaning  money  on  personal  secu 
rity  ;  by  obtaining,  issuing  and  circulating  notes  according  to  the 
provisions  of  this  act,"  &c. 

This  system,  like  its  predecessors,  was  a  system  of  crimes 
which  were  distributed  regularly  along  the  pathway  of  its  exist 
ence. 

I.  The  first  crime  or  blunder  of  the  new  banking  system  was 
that  it  was  allowed  to  issue  money  upon  the  faith  or  credit  of 
the  bonds,  and  receive  at  the  same  time  a  heavy  interest  upon 
both  the  bonds  which  they  held,  and  the  notes  which  they  issued, 
at  the  very  highest  interest  tolerated  in  the  State  in  which  the 
bank  is  located,  and  preparatory  to  the  most  extravagant  and 
usurious  rates.  The  Governors  of  several  of  the  States,  duly 
bribed,  have  recommended  the  entire  repeal  of  the  usury  laws 
for  the  benefit  of  the  banks. 

Congress  authorized  the  issue  of  "  National  Bank  Currency  " 
to  supply  the  place  of  the  legal  tender  treasury  note,  which  had 


392  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

been  withdrawn  to  buy  up  these  bonds.  But,  before  one  dollar 
of  this  national  bank  currency  found  its  way  into  circulation,  the 
borrower  had  to  pay  ten  per  cent,  discount,  which,  duly  com 
pounded  in  a  year,  would  be  nearly  fifteen  per  cent,  per  annum, 
which  thus  aggregates: 

Interest  on  Government  Bonds 7  3-10  per  cent. 

Bank  discount,  exchange,  &c.,  duly  footed. ..15  " 

To  pay  for  collecting  and  disbursing,  all  told. . .  15  " 

37  3-10  per  cent. 

On  the  whole  circulation  this  is  very  nearly  what  every  dollar 
costs  the  people  before  it  finds  its  way  into  the  borrower's  pocket. 
The  current  value  of  the  depreciated  currency  which  was  given 
for  the  bonds,  was  but  little  more  than  one-third  of  its  face, 
making  every  bond  issued  in  the  shape  of  National  Bank  notes, 
cost  about  90  per  cent,  per  annum,  after  making  due  and  fair 
allowance  for  all  discrepancies  exacted  from  the  pockets  of  the 
people,  to  be  paid  to  a  bonded  aristocracy  —  free  from  taxation 
—  for  the  ostensible  purpose  of  exchanging  the  notes  of  the 
Treasury  of  the  United  States,  for  notes  on  a  corporation ;  but  for 
the  real  purpose  of  building  up  a  privileged  class  in  the  country, 
to  control  its  property,  business,  elections  and  government.  (If 
this  calculation  was  made  upon  the  5-20  bonds,  on  which  six 
per  cent,  interest  in  gold  is  paid,  arid  upon  which  the  bank  cur 
rency  is  based,  the  percentage  would  be  greater ;  but  it  is  upon 
the  7-30s,  they  being  issued  to  supply  the  place  of  the  Treasury 
notes  withdrawn  to  make  way  for  the  bank  notes.)  Here  it  may 
be  well  to  consider  the  evil  which  was  suffered  by  the  people  in 
the  change  of  paper  money,  to  induce  the  creation  of  Banks. 

It  must  be  apparent  to  all,  that  the  issue  of  these  bonds  was 
unnecessary  to  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  The  very  moment 
that  the  legal  tender  notes  were  declared  money  under  the  arbi 
trary  power  of  the  Government,  they  were  the  very  best  thing 
in  the  shape  of  promises  to  pay  that  the  people  could  have  for 
currency,  where  there  was  no  money.  Then  why  issue  bonds? 
But  if  any  pretence  is  offered  for  the  issue  of  the  first  bonds,  to 
get  money,  or  rather  paper,  or  it  may  have  been  some  gold,  there 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 


393 


was  no  possible  financial  necessity  for  the  sale  of  bonds  after  the 
Government  commenced  the  issue  of  greenbacks.  The  reason 
is  patent  on  its  face.  It  was  two-fold.  They  issued  bonds  free 
from  taxation  to  give  the  rich  men  -of  the  country  an  opportu 
nity  to.  invest  their  money  in  this  manner,  that  the  party  might 
control  and  use  their  wealth  to  retain  the  political  power  of  the 
country. 

There  was  another  reason  quite  as  transparent  as  this ;  it  was 
that  national  banking  had  been  voted  down,  overthrown,  was 
dead, — buried  by  Jackson,  and  could  be  raised  over  his  immortal 
fame,  only  by  force  and  fraud.  But  these  men  wanted  national 
banking,  with  its  fraud  and  corruption.  This  was  the  plan  to 
revive  it :  issue  bonds  to  draw  interest  to  the  bankers  as  the  basis 
of  the  banks ;  then  let  the  banks  issue  their  paper  and  draw  in 
terest  on  short  loans,  and  compounded  from  the  people  who  bor 
rowed  the  notes  from  the  bank  to  pay  the  interest.  By  this  pro 
cess  the  banker  draws  double  interest  —  interest  on  his  bonds 
which  he  bought,  and  interest  on  the  bank  notes  which  he  issues, 
but  it  is  all  the  same  money.  But  on  all  this  he  is  freed  entirely 
from  the  taxation  which  is  imposed  on  every  other  species  of 
property. 

The  folly  was  allowed  of  inflating  a  currency,  just  when  it 
ought  to  have  been  contracted. 

Of  creating  high  prices  just  when  the  price  of  everything 
should  have  been  reduced. 

There  was  even,  after  this  folly,  one  remedy  which  would  have 
equalized  the  burden,  and  with  some  degree  of  fairness,  distribu 
ted  the  losses  suffered  by  the  people  among  those  who  had  un 
fairly  gained  by  the  inflation. 

This  remedy  was  a  simple  as  well  as  equitable  one,  which  was 
to  allow  the  Treasury  notes  without  interest,  to  remain  as  the  en 
tire  circulating  medium  of  the  country,  until  they  were  absorbed 
in  duties,  taxes  and  fees,  due  the  general  and  State  Governments  • 
and  in  this  way  the  general  debt,  the  burden,  would  scarcely  have 
been  felt  among  the  people,  except  in  the  losses  of  the  war,  des 
olation,  plunder,  and  death. 

But  no  sooner  had  the  bonds  been  issued  and  the  fate  of  the 
people  been  irrevocably  sealed,  than  Greeley  and  others  clamored 
for  an  immediate  specie  basis. 


394  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL,   WAR. 

This  would  secure  the  payment  of  the  bonds  and  their  in 
terest  in  gold,  which  would  have  been,  as  has  been  shown,  at 
enormous  interest,  considering  the  cost  of  the  bonds,  which  were 
to  be  fastened  as  a  nameless,  endless  curse,  upon  our  posterity  for 
ever.  This  subject  is  well  worthy  of  illustration,  and  entirely 
susceptible  of  it. 

The  fact  was  entirely  covered  up  by  the  speculators  and  over 
looked  by  the  people,  that  a  great  debt,  created  in  an  inflated 
currency,  must  be  paid  in  an  inflated  currency,  if  paid  at  all. 
The  ordinary  transactions  of  life  require  this.  The  man  who 
bought  his  farm  when  wheat  was  a  dollar  a  bushel,  and  pork  was 
ten  dollars  per  hundred  pounds,  and  made  his  first  payment, 
hoping  to  pay  the  remaining  debt  out  of  the  proceeds  of  his  crop, 
when  wheat  falls  to  fifty  cents  a  bushel  and  pork  to  three  dollars 
a  hundred,  he  will  have  to  duplicate  his  crop  of  wheat  and  trip 
licate  his  stock  of  pork,  or  surrender  his  farm  and  lose  his  first 
payment. 

What  is  true  of  private  affairs,  is  preeminently  true  of  the 
affairs  of  the  public. 

Even  now,  if  the  immediate  payment  of  these  first  mortgages  in 
treasury  notes,  precisely  what  they  were  originally  exchanged  for, 
would  relieve  the  country  of  the  National  Banks,  another  body 
of  leeches,  fastened  upon  the  body  political,  with  the  collectors, 
assessors,  and  the  whole  retinue  of  government  cormorants,  would 
feast  upon  the  labors  of  the  poor.  To  this  might  be  returned  the 
answer,  that  this  would  beget  general  ruin  and  destroy  the  value 
of  the  currency.  But  the  currency  which  we  now  have,  has  no 
value ;  it  is  neither  a  measure  nor  standard  of  value,  and  to  the 
people  of  the  country,  it  is  of  the  very  least  possible  importance, 
what  becomes  of  it.  Whatever  else  may  become  of  the  present 
currency,  the  issue  of  the  Treasury  notes  would  relieve  the  people 
of  the  burdens  of  taxation  to  pay  the  interest  on  the  bonds, 
upon  the  one  hand,  and  give  to  the  country  a  currency,  which 
the  law  has  declared  a  legal  tender,  without  the  additional  taxation 
to  support  thousands  of  banks,  and  tens  of  thousands  of  bank 
ers'  clerks,  tellers,  and  their  useless  and  extravagant  army  of 
public  profligates.  And  if  the  government,  which  has  been  buy 
ing  its  own  paper,  at  thirty -six  to  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar,  wants 


CHIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  395 

to  pay  the  debt  and  redeem  its  notes,  it  can  do  it  even  at  lower 
figures  than  it  has  ever  touched  before,  and  at  once  return  to  a 
gold  and  silver  basis ;  the  debt  is  due  from  the  poor  people,  and 
let  the  money  be  bought  up  at  the  lowest  possible  figures. 

It  is  a  duty  in  honesty  and  candor,  duly  to  notify  the  bond 
holders  that  this  is  the  only  conceivable  way  in  which  the  bonds 
may  approximate  to  a  final  payment. 

THE  SECOND  CEIME   OF  THE  NATIONAL   BANKING  SYSTEM  WAS 
THE  LEGITIMATE  OFFSPRING  OF  THE  FIRST. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  talks  of  reducing  the  volume 
of  the  currency,  and,  at  an  early  day,  to  resume  specie  payment. 

The  thing  is  preposterous,  unless  the  government  chooses  this 
as  the  most  direct  road  to  repudiation,  for  in  that  case  the  pay 
ment  of  the  debt  is  impossible. 

The  return  of  a  million  of  men  to  agricultural  pursuits,  will 
bring  down  the  price  of  every  kind  of  produce  to  a  merely  nom 
inal  value,  and  leaving  the  Western  farmers  without  a  compen 
sating  market,  except  the  unprofitable  one,  created  by  famine. 

The  volume  of  currency  is  contracting  already  in  the  rural 
districts,  and  then  comes  the  crash.  Then  must  be  realized  this 
self-demonstrating  argument,  that  whoever  owes  more  than  he  is 
worth,  and  spends  more  than  he  makes,  is  bankrupt. 


THE  BONA  FIDE  RESUME  OF  SPECIE  BASIS,  WHILE  THE  BONDS 
ARE  IN  EXISTENCE,  WOULD  BE  CRIME  PERPETRATED  AND 
A  GIGANTIC  FRAUD  OF  THE  BONDHOLDERS  UPON  THE 
PEOPLE  ;  WHEREBY  THEY  DOUBLE  THE  VALUE  OF  THE 
GOVERNMENT  BONDS  AND  IN  THE  SAME  RATIO  DISABLE 
THE  PEOPLE  TO  PAY  THEM. 

Mr  McCulloch  congratulates  the  country  upon  the  exceeding 
great  revenue  from  duties  and  other  sources,  and  makes  this  the 
basis  of  his  hopes  of  an  early  return  to  specie  payment,  and  the 
easy  and  ready  facility  for  the  payment  of  the  public  debt.  His 
illustrious  predecessor,  Albert  Gallatin,  entirely  differs  with  Sec 
retary  McCulloch.  Mr.  Gallatin  says : 

"Theunforeseen^unexampled  accumulation  of  the  public  reve- 


396  CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

nue,  was  one  of  the  principal  proximate  causes  of  the  disasters 
that  followed."  This  was  not  only  true  of  the  great  financial 
crisis  that  convulsed  the  United  States  banks,  through  the  bank 
issues  and  stock  gambling,  but  it  is  universally  true  in  every 
system  of  irresponsible  banking,  where  there  is  no  specie  pay 
ment.  The  bank  paper  falls  far  below  par,  and  then  there  is  an 
impossibility  of  buying  any  property  or  paying  any  debt  abroad, 
except  with  gold  and  silver,  for  just  as  fast  as  the  precious  metals, 
whether  in  coin  or  bullion,  are  unlocked  from  the  coffers  of  the 
miser  and  flow  into  the  channels  of  trade,  they  are  swept  away 
in  the  current  of  commerce,  and  used  to  pay  for  every  conceiva 
ble  luxury  consumed  by  the  rich  bondholders,  who,  secure  in  his 
income  from  the  bondage  of  the  people,  is  only  concerned  about 
inventing  means  to  expend  what  he  has  made,  and  provide  to 
waste  in  extravagance,  what  the  foolish  people  are  paying  in  self- 
denial. 

The  gold  and  silver  of  the  country  is  soon  disposed  of;  and 
the  very  day  that  an  attempt  is  made  to  resume  the  specie  pay 
ment  and  restore  a  specie  basis  in  the  transactions  of  the  business 
of  the  country,  every  avenue  of  trade  will  realize  what  is  now 
startlingly  manifest  to  thoughtful  men,  that  we  are  utterly  and 
hopelessly  bankrupt.  It  is  not  writhin  the  reach  of  human  power 
to  avert  the  approaching  calamity,  and  this  is  quite  well  under 
stood  among  intelligent  financiers.  Among  the  stock-gamblers, 
the  only  purpose  in  view,  is  to  postpone  the  time  and  prolong 
the  day  of  the  final  explosion. 

In  the  meantime,  the  shrewd  and  unscrupulous,  who  have  con 
tributed  their  full  share  to  the  general  bankruptcy,  will  econo 
mize  their  means,  arrange  their  affairs,  shift  their  men  on  the  chess 
board  and  shuffle  the  cards;  so  that  the  poor  and  middle  classes 
may  be  left  with  an  empty  hand,  in  a  game  where  the  rich  always 
win,  the  poor  always  lose,  and  capital  lies  as  a  sponge  to  drink 
up  the  hard  earnings  of  labor. 

But  in  the  contraction  of  the  currency,  precisely  the  same  crime 
for  the  same  purpose,  ruinous  in  itself,  was  repeated,  which  was 
first  committed  in  its  expansion. 

In  regard  to  the  return  to  a  specie  basis,  Albert  Gallatin  says, 
"  Its  process  was  much  too  prompt.  The  legislature  was  not,  and 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL    WAR.  397 

could  not  be  aware,  how  slow  and  gradual  the  diminution  of  dis 
counts  must  be,  in  order  that  universal  distress  may  not  ensue." 

The  violent  and  precipitate  changes  to  which  we  have  subjected 
the  value  of  the  miserable  rag  system,  which  we  call  currency, 
would  ruin  any  people  under  heaven. 

Nothing  but  a  miracle,  where  miracles  are  neither  wrought 
nor  promised,  could  save  us  from  bankruptcy.  Let  us  for  a  mo 
ment  look  at  these  sudden  transitions  of  the  currency.  In  Jan 
uary,  1862,  the  legal  tender  notes  were  currency  at  par.  In  De 
cember  of  the  same  year,  it  required  one  hundred  and  sixty  dol 
lars  of  this  paper  to  buy  one  hundred  dollars  in  gold.  Allowing 
the  circulation  of  paper  currency  to  have  been  seven  hundred 
millions,  then,  in  the  transaction  of  business,  there  was  a  loss  of 
four  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of  dollars,  which  fell  on  those 
in  whose  hands  the  change  occurred.  This  was  inevitable,  for 
the  one  hundred  and  sixty  dollars  paid  in  December,  was  of  no 
more  value  than  the  one  hundred  dollars  borrowed  in  January. 
In  any  part  of  the  civilized  world,  only  gold  and  silver  would  have 
been  received  in  payment  of  any  exchange  or  commodity  bought 
with  this  one  hundred  and  sixty  dollars.  Then  somebody  lost 
sixty  dollars  in  legal  tender,  which  was  required  to  buy  the  gold 
dollar  of  the  banker,  your  tea  of  the  Chinese,  your  coffee  of  the 
West  Indies,  and  other  necessaries,  to  say  nothing  of  the  luxuries,  of 
life.  This  loss  was  not  sustained  by  the  banker  any  more  than 
the  trap  was  laid  to  catch  the  trapper.  The  capitalists  of  the 
country  who  took  charge  of  the  government  in  1861,  well  under 
standing  the  theory  of  our  financial  revolution  which  was  to  ac 
company  the  entire  change  of  our  form  of  government,  improved 
the  occasion,  and  made  the  disasters  of  the  country  minister  to 
their  munificence ;  whilst  every  orphan,  widow  and  superannuated 
person  living  on  their  income,  invested  in  property  such  as  rents 
annuities,  etc.,  were  robbed  of  the  difference  between  one  dollar 
in  gold  in  January,  and  one  dollar  in  paper  in  December, — -just 
thirty  -seven  and  one-half  per  cent  of  the  entire  value  of  his 
debt.  But  in  July,  1864,  the  one  hundred  dollars  in  gold  due 
for  money  lent  years  before,  was  paid  in  legal  tender,  when  it  re 
quired  of  that  paper  two  dollars  and  eighty-five  cents  to  buy  a  dol 
lar  in  gold ;  which  subjected  the  creditor  to  a  loss  of  sixty-five  and 


398  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

seven-tenth  per  cent,  of  his  whole  debt, — an  aggregate  loss  upon 
the  currency  of  the  country  of  four  hundred  and  fifty-nine  million 
nine  hundred  thousand,  or  nearly  two-thirds  of  the  whole  curren 
cy  in  circulation  in  the  country. 

This  was  another  positive  loss  of  that  amount  of  money  by 
somebody.  Just  at  that  very  time,  when  the  national  credit  was 
simply  as  brown  paper  with  the  risks  of  a  lottery,  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  placed  enormous  sums  of  "  Assignors"  " Man 
date,"  "  East  India  Company  stock"  " Mississippi  bubble  scr ip"  or 
the  different  style  of  bonds,  were  thrown  upon  the  market  to  con 
tract  the  inflated  currency.  These  bonds  are  a  mortgage  on  the 
United  States  to  pay  one  dollar  in  gold  for  thirty-four  cents  and 
three  mills ;  in  plainer  language,  the  government  engaged  to  pay 
three  dollars  for  one,  and  thus  pay  18  per  cent,  per  annum  on  each 
dollar  in  gold. 

Two-thirds  of  this  debt  was  a  naked  robbery  upon  the 
labor  of  the  country,  perpetrated  by  Secretary  Chase. 

Having  disposed  of  these  bonds  to  American  and  European 
capitalists,  the  basis  of  their  aristocracy  was  complete.  There 
was  some  exception  to  this  general  rule.  Strange  as  -  it  may 
sound  to  the  ear  of  common  sense,  yet  it  was  announced  that  a 
few  vagrant  fifty  and  one  hundred  dollar  bonds  were  issued  for 
the  accommodation  of  the  poor.  Perhaps  several  out  of  many 
hundred  millions  of  dollars  were  bought  up  by  the  mechanics 
and  others,  who  could  command  a  few  hundred  dollars  in  money. 
Like  everything  held  by  this  class  of  persons,  it  was  by  but  a 
feeble  tenure.  And  there  was  a  speculation  of  slight  moment 
in  getting  these  bonds  out  of  the  hands  of  this  class  of  public 
creditors.  The  conspiracy  of  Secretarys'  agents  and  Senators, 
etc.,  went  to  work  to  depreciate  the  bonds,  and  leave  them  at  a 
discount,  which  alarmed  those  bondholders  who  were  not  in  the 
secret.  Such  were  glad  to  sell  them  at  a  discount,  which  was 
precipitated  by  the  necessities  upon  them,  for  the  current  expenses 
of  living.  After  this  temporary  panic,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  in  order  to  make  the  bonds  more  valuable,  and  ap 
proximate  a  gold  standard,  so  that  the  capital  of  the  country 
might  be  drawn  from  its  legitimate  channels,  went  into  the 
market  to  beat  down  the  gold,  (or  really  to  raise  the  standard  of 


CRIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR.  399 

the  bonds),  and  give  a  fictitious  value  to  the  new  bank  paper,  so 
that  one  dollar  in  gold,  which  cost  $2.85,  may  now  be  bought 
for  $1.25,  which,  in  a  circulation  of  $700,000,000  to  the  holders 
of  money,  is  equal  to  the  enormous  sum  of  $1,120,000,000,  more 
than  one-eleventh  of  the  whole  taxable  real  and  personal  prop 
erty  of  the  United  States,  according  to  the  census  of  1860. 

These  fluctuations  have  been  by  design,  and  growing  out  of 
the  very  nature  of  the  stock-gambling,  upon  which  the  national 
banking  system  is  established.  The  aggregate  losses  of  the 
country  during  the  crusade  against  liberty  and  rational  civil 
government,  may  be  summed  up  as  follows,  namely : 

By  depreciation  of  the  currency  from  January, 

1862,  to  January,  1863 $  420,000,000 

From  January,  1863,  to  July,  1864 457,000,000 

From  July,  1864,  to  April,  1866 1,120,000,000 

Making  a  total  of. $1,997,000,000 

All  of  which  has  resulted  from  a  violation  of  Mr.  Gallatin's 
maxim,  which  heads  these  remarks. 

Now  it  is  true  that  these  depreciations  did  not  take  money 
from  the  country;  it  passed  from  the  hands  of  Americans. 
This  very  fact  made  it  worse,  that  it  passed  from  the  hands  of 
poor  Americans  to  rich  Americans ;  from  the  ignorant,  unsus 
pecting,  and  the  confiding,  into  the  hands  of  the  shrewd,  de 
signing,  and  faithless,  just  as  all  of  this  debt  will,  which  is  due 
among  ourselves,  to  ourselves,  and  creates  distinctions  based 
upon  that  fact,  and  makes  them,  therefore,  the  more  odious. 

IF  THE  BUSINESS  AND  LABOR  OF   THE  COUNTRY  ARE   TO   BE 

REDUCED  TO  A  SPECIE  BASIS,  which  the  Secretary  demands, 
then  must  the  people  demand  that  these  bonds  and  notes  be  re 
duced  to  a  specie  basis. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  has  been  voluminous  in  his 
essays  upon  the  public  faith,  honor  and  credit,  in  the  payment 
of  European  capitalists,  who,  after  grinding  their  own  poor  people 
to  powder,  come  to  America  to  reinvest  the  interest  extorted 
from  them  in  American  bonds,  and  extend  their  aristocratic 
dominion  to  the  laboring  classes  of  the  United  States,  in  part- 


400  CEIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR. 

nership  with  the  demagogues,  usurers,  and  extortioners,  who  en 
slave  their  neighbors  to  riot  upon  their  industry.  Is  it  not  a 
most  remarkable  fact  that  this  astute  gentleman,  with  all  of  the 
great  body  of  interested  financiers,  who  are  fastidiously  affected 
about  American  honor,  have  never  uttered  one  word  about  the 
rights  of  the  people  whose  property  is  mortgaged  by  this  terrible 
taxation  ? 

The  debt  was  created  in  an  inflated  currency,  which  virtually 
repudiated  about  sixty  per  cent,  of  every  debt  which  it  assumed 
to  pay  upon  the  one  hand,  and  gave  an  increased  nominal  value 
to  the  property  of  the  country  upon  the  other  hand. 

Upon  a  specie  basis  to  which  you  reduce  the  currency  to  make 
things  even,  the  debt  payable,  and  the  government  solvent,  the 
debt  should  be  at  once  reduced,  as  not  only  the  first,  but  the 
only  step  which  may  be  taken  in  the  pathway  of  ultimate  set 
tlement.  By  a  specie  basis  is  meant  the  exact  amount  of  specie 
which  it  required  to  buy  these  bonds  at  the  date  of  issue. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  has  been  putting  gold  on  the 
market  to  excite  the  value  of  this  flimsy,  ragged  money,  and  in 
the  same  ratio,  increase  the  public  debt.  In  this  he  has  committed 
a  crime,  perpetrated  a  direct  robbery  on  labor,  which  must  be 
taxed  to  pay  it. 

This  truth  is  susceptible  of  easy  illustration.  Suppose  the 
debts  of  the  country,  Federal,  State,  county,  corporate  and  indi 
vidual,  of  every  kind,  all  told,  amount  to  $8,000,000,000,  which 
is  not  wide  of  the  mark  ;  suppose  that  this  debt  was  contracted, 
when  one  dollar  in  gold  could  have  bought  three  dollars  in  legal 
tender  in  the  market,  then  one  dollar  in  gold  would  have  paid 
three  dollars  of  this  debt.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  am 
bitious  to  keep  up  what  he  calls  the  credit  of  the  government, 
hurries  post-haste  into  the  market  to  sell  his  gold,  and  thereby 
make  his  bonds  and  paper  more  valuable,  and  virtually  increase 
the  debt  up  to  a  par  value  in  gold,  for  which  the  country  re 
ceived  but  about  forty  per  cent.,  including  frauds,  thefts,  decep 
tions,  &c.,  &c. 

In  this  process  the  Secretary  commits  a  double  crime.  In  the 
first  place  he  depreciates  the  nominal  value  of  produce  and 
property  in  the  exact  ratio  in  which  he  travels  toward  a  specie 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  401 

payment.  But  he  does  not  thereby  depreciate  the  debt,  interest 
or  value  of  the  bonds ;  but  on  the  contrary,  whenever  he  has 
succeeded  in  reducing  the  currency  to  a  specie  standard,  the 
corresponding  value  of  labor  is  reduced,  and,  to  the  farmers  of 
the  country,  he  has  practically  increased  the  debt  three-fold. 

By  this  course  he  is  deceiving  the  country  in  regard  to  our 
ability  to  pay  the  public  debt.  He  is  giving  to  the  bonds  a  fic- 
ticious  value,  which  will  be  exploded  upon  the  announcement 
of  a  return  to  a  specie  payment.  By  this  means  capital  is  with 
drawn  from  commerce,  navigation,  manufactures  and  agriculture, 
amounting  to  more  in  the  injury  inflicted  than  could  be  counter 
acted  by  all  of  the  duties,  bounties,  prohibitions  and  drawbacks 
the  government  might  choose  to  bestow  upon  these  various 
branches  of  wealth,  industry  and  public  enterprise.  What  is  still 
worse  in  a  corresponding  ratio,  the  people  who  have  to  pay  the 
interest  on  the  bonds,  find  their  means  to  pay  the  debt  diminish 
in  exact  proportion  with  the  par  value  of  their  bonds. 

The  zeal  of  Secretary  McCulloch  may  be  justly  likened  to 
the  sinner  who  procrastinates  ;  has  each  day  one  day's  more  sin  to 
repent  of,  and  one  day  less  in  which  to  repent.  So,  every  dollar 
in  legal  tender  exchanged  for  bonds,  gave  to  the  people  one  dol 
lar  more  to  pay,  and  subtracting  it  from  the  value  of  the  cur 
rency,  gave  them  one  dollar  less  to  pay  it  in.  But  in  the  re 
duction  of  the  circulating  medium  to  a  specie  standard,  precisely 
the  same  thing  is  done  in  a  different  manner,  by  the  apprecia 
tion  of  the  price  of  bonds. 

All  of  the  hollow  expedients  of  Chase,  Fessenden,  and 
McCulloch,  to  make  this  paper  equal  to  gold,  are  and  must  be, 
a  failure  forever.  Each  miserable  subterfuge  has  only  increased 
the  value  of  the  public  debt,  and  to  the  same  extent  crippled  the 
power  of  the  people  to  pay  it ;  and  diverted  the  productive  cap 
ital  of  the  country  from  business  into  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States,  from  whence  it  cannot  return,  without  the  enormous  rates 
of  interest  indicated  and  illustrated  above,  upon  the  bonds  and 
upon  the  notes  issued  from  them. 

The  great  difficulty  with  Secretary  McCulloch  is,  that  he 
overlooks  the  mortifying  fact  that  he  is  a  victim  and  tool  of  the 
designing  Chase,  who  fled  from  his  own  cob-house  to  the  Su- 
26 


402  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

preme  Bench,  to  try  patriots  for  treason,  and  exercise  his  judi 
cial  functions  to  rob  the  people  of  the  South  of  their  property, 
to  indemnify  the  people  of  the  North  for  robberies  perpetrated 
upon  them  by  himself. 

The  cardinal  and  overshadowing  evil  from  which  all  the  other 
trivial  evils  flow,  is,  that  we  are  in  debt,  and  have  not  means 
adequate  to  its  liquidation. 

The  taxes,  duties  and  stamps  eat  up  our  productive  power. 
These  alone  would  be  burdensome  if  the  merchandize  and  wares 
we  use  were  freely  bestowed  upon  us;  but  added  to  the  prices, 
they  are  onerous,  enormous,  ruinous ;  and  each  day  growing 
more  burdensome  by  the  monstrous  follies  of  the  men  who  ad 
minister  our  affairs. 

The  first  repudiation  of  existing  debts  by  positive  legislation, 
was  a  wrong  difficult  to  apologize  for;  but  the  duplication  and 
triplication  of  the  private  and  public  debt  of  the  country  by  an 
artificial  appreciation  of  an  irredeemable  currency,  is  even  more 
reprehensible. 

Each  step  has  been  a  faux  pas,  and  each  proposed  remedy  a 
hollow  subterfuge,  not  approximating  the  dignity  of  a  sophism. 
Every  transparent  claptrap  and  each  exploded  theory  of  the  past, 
has  been  revived  to  sustain  this  tottering  trestle-work  of  fraud 
and  corruption.  The  whole  has  failed —  failed  worse  than  assig- 
nats  —  worse  than  the  laws  of  Mississippi,  a  bubble  worse  than 
Continental  currency ;  for  each  of  these  in  their  day  in  some 
measure,  freed  the  country  from  debt.  But  this  paper  phantom 
has  reared  in  its  shadow  an  overbearing  power  far  exceeding  in 
atrocity  and  insolence,  the  usurpations, of  the  East  India  Com 
pany. 

The  last  whim  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  assumes  that 
the  people  of  the  country  are  idiots,  and  proposes  a  sinking  fund 
of  one  per  cent,  compounded,  &c.,  &c.;  the  very  same  miserable 
stuff  which  John  Law  proposed  as  the  introduction  of  his  French 
Financial  Jubilee.  But  who  will  borrow  at  this  compound  in 
terest  ?  There  is  a  refreshing  humor  in  the  cool  and  calculating 
impudence  of  the  giant  borrower  turning  loaner  on  the  small 
scale  of  the  sinking  fund ;  and  is  only  equalled  by  the  proposition 
to  loan  Mexico  some  twelve  millions  of  dollars,  whilst  the 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  403 

United  States  were  borrowing  hundreds  of  millions,  for  the 
purpose  of  restoring  order  in  that  distracted  country,  when  an 
archy  was  reigning  supreme  in  our  midst,  and  hundreds  of  thous 
ands  were  dying  in  camp  hospitals  and  battle-fields.  There 
have  been  many  embarassed  borrowers ;  but  never  yet  was  one 
known  to  pay  his  debt  by  loaning. 

The  financiers  of  England  and  France  each  have  tried  and 
failed  in  this  same  project.  The  payment  of  the  debt  has  always 
been  impossible.  These  varied  plans  are  all  absurd.  The  Na 
tional  Banking  system  makes  it  doubly  so. 

The  capacity  of  a  people  to  pay  a  debt  created  in  an  inflated 
currency  with  the  same  means  only  in  a  contracted  currency,  is 
very  fully  illustrated  in  the  every  day  transactions  of  life. 

When  the  debt  was  in  the  act  of  creation,  corn  brought  one 
dollar  in  cash  in  the  market  at  the  principal  railroad  stations  in 
the  Western  States.  Now,  the  one-third  of  this  is  regarded  a 
high  price,  except  where  famine  reigns.  This,  then,  is  a  con 
traction  of  two-thirds  of  the  productive  power  of  the  country 
which  must  meet  this  debt.  Or  it  is  in  fact  a  triplication  of  the 
debt.  For  the  debt  is  not  diminished  with  the  means  of  its 
payment  one  farthing,  either  in  its  principal  or  its  accruing 
interest. 

In  all  the  vacillations  of  business,  commerce,  and  navigation, 
the  debt  is  stationary,  and  the  interest  well  established. 

The  usurers  have  so  adjusted  this,  that  whoever  may  lose  or 
suffer  diminution  in  their  claim,  the  bonds  and  the  Banker's  claim 
sutler  nothing. 

The  last  great  crime  in  the  establishment  of  the  National 
Banks,  is  their  insolvency,  and  the  impossibility  of  securing  the 
currency  issued  from  them.  The  question  of  their  bankruptcy 
is  only  one  of  time. 

The  whole  paper  fabric  rests  upon  the  bonds  and  immutability 
of  the  public  credit. 

These  can  be  no  more  secure  than  the  Continental  money,  nor 
the  obligation  any  greater  to  redeem  them ;  but  it  was  never 
redeemed.  , 

These  are  no  more  sacred  than  the  United  States  Bank  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  it  was  closed  up  in  insolvency. 


404  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  ' 

They  can  have  no  stronger  written  guarantees  than  those  of 
the  Constitution  which  protected  African  Slavery,  which  was 
protected  by  the  British  Government  from  1680,  and  afterwards 
by  the  Constitution,  and  recognized  by  all  the  judicial  authority 
of  the  land.  And  slavery  has  been  abolished. 

The  security  of  the  bonds  is  no  greater.  The  private  inter 
ests  of  the  people  are  the  only  indemnity  in  popular  govern 
ments  for  the  enforcement  of  claims  of  any  character  which  must 
be  adjudicated  before  courts.  This  must,  of  necessity,  be  true; 
for  our  highest  courts,  in  any  question  of  government,  is  simply 
a  select  political  assembly,  scarcely  ever  free  from  the  worst  taints 
of  party  prejudice,  and  interest,  as  time  hath  abundantly  dem 
onstrated.  It  is  growing  all  the  time  more  so. 

When  parties  are  formed,  as  formed  they  will  be,  upon  this 
basis,  repudiation  will  be  a  direct  issue,  to  be  voted  for  or  against. 
At  first,  it  will  be  rejected,  but  the  debt  will  still  remain;  the 
interest  will  be  still  accruing,  the  taxes  will  still  be  growing,  and 
the  people  will  be  unable  to  pay  them.  The  persistency  of  the 
bold  men  who  strike  for  liberty  and  lead  the  people,  will  gain 
them  position  and  power. 

This  issue  will  scatter  the  present  combination  of  parties  to 
the  four  winds.  Inspired  by  hopes  of  plunder,  led  and  control 
led  by  trimmers  and  malignant  men,  their  combinations  are  nei 
ther  powerful  nor  enduring. 

They  are  like  the  vultures  that  follow  the  scent  of  armies,  to 
gather  up  the  offal.  Or  like  sneak-thieves  and  shoplifters,  who 
are  always  idle  and  never  busy,  except  when  the  cry  of  fire  gives 
them  notice  of  opportunity  to  load  themselves  with  plunder. 
But  in  a  great  contest,  such  men  will  soon  give  place  to  earnest 
friends  of  true  liberty,  who  will  sweep  the  bonds  from  the  face 
of  the  earth,  and  with  them  will  fall  the  Banks,  tottering  to  the 
ground. 


CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAE.  405 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE  EXPIRING  CRIME  OF  CHASE'S  BANKING  SYSTEM. 

ANNEXED  is  a  statement  showing  the  amount  of  the  national 
debt  for  each  year,  since  the  organization  of  the  government : 

1791 $75,463,476  1821 $89,987,428 

1792 77,227,924  1822 93,549,677 

1793...., 80,352,634  1823 90,875,877 

1794 78,427,405  1824 90,269,778 

1795 80,747,587  1825 83,788,433 

1796 83,862,172  1826 81,054,060 

1797 82,064,479  1827 73,987,357 

1798 79,228,529  1828 67,475,044 

1799 78,408,670  1829 , 58,481,414 

1800 82,976,294  1830 48,665,406 

1801 83,038,051  1831 39,423,492 

1802 80,712,632  1832 14,322,235 

1803 ,  77,054,686  1833 7,001,099 

1804 86,427,121  1834 4,760>082 

1805 82,312,150  1835 37,733 

1806 75,723,271  1836 37,513 

1807 69,218,399  1837 1,878,224 

1808 65,196,318  1838 4,857,660 

1809 57,023,192  1839 11,988,738 

1810 53,173,217  1840 5,125,078 

1811 48,005,588  1841 6,727,398 

1812 45,209,738  1842 15,028,486 

1813 55,962,828  1843 26,898,953 

1814 81,487,846  1844 26,143,896 

1815 99,833,660  1845 16,801,647 

1816 127,334,934  1846 24,256,495 

1817  103,491,965  1847 45,659,495 

1818 ..103,466,634  1848 65,804,450 

1819 95,529,648  1849 64,704,693 

1820 91,015,566  1850 64,228,238 


406  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

1851 $62,560,395  1857 $25,165,155 

1852 67,560,390  1858 44,910,778 

1853 56,336,187  1859 58,754,699 

1854 44,975,456  1860 74,985,299 

1855 39,960,733  1861 110.000,000 

1856 30,963,210 

A  thrill  of  unutterable  anguish  penetrates  the  soul  of  an 
American,  in  overlooking  the  above  table. 

The  long  period  required  to  extinguish  the  meagre  part  of  the 
revolutionary  debt  assumed  by  our  fathers,  was  an  unheeded 
warning  to  their  children. 

The  protracted  period,  through  which  the  small  debt  of  1816 
draggled  through  the  economical  administrations  of  Monroe, 
Adams  and  Jackson,  reminds  us  that  the  youngest  child  will  not 
live  to  see  the  great  debt  of  the  civil  war  liquidated.  The  war 
debt  of  1816  would  not  have  carried  us  through  six  months  of 
our  present  peace  establishment  kept  up  by  armies,  nor  paid 
one-half  of  the  annual  interest  on  our  debt. 

The  following  table  exhibits  values,  but  does  not  exhibit  the 
bold  robberies  of  the  weekly  faro-bank,  fed  upon  the  fluctuations 
of  this  miserable  currency. 

VALUE  OF  A  CURRENT  DOLLAR  TO  COIN. 

The  following  table  shows  the  relative  value  of  a  currency 
dollar  to  coin,  at  the  different  rates  of  premium  from  1  to  100. 
The  fractions  given  are  as  near  the  cents  as  they  can  be  approach 
ed,  without  the  aid  of  parts  of  mills.  The  table  will  be  found 
valuable  for  preservation,  and  will  tend  to  undeceive  many  who 
are  of  the  impression  that  the  amount  of  premium  must  be  sub 
tracted  from  the  currency  dollar,  in  order  to  ascertain  its  relative 
value : f 

Value  of  a  Vahie  of  a 

Prem.  Current  Dollar.        Prem.  Current  Dollar. 

101 99  106 94} 

102 98  107 93J 

103 97  108 92J 

104.... 96-|  109 91f 

105 95i  110 90} 


CRIMES  OP  THE  CIVIL  WAE.  407 


Value  of  a  Value  of  a. 

Pretn.  Current  Dollar.  Prem.  Ciirrent  Dollar. 

Ill 90  153 65f 

112 89J  154 65 

113 881  155 64} 

114 87|  156 64J- 

115 86{  157 63f 

116 86i  158 63J 

117 851  159 62} 

118 ....84}  160 52} 

119 S4i  161 62 

120 83|  162 61} 

121 ; 82f  163 „ :.61f 

122 82  164 61 

123 81J  165 60f 

124 80f  166 60J 

125 80  167 59J 

126 79|  168 59} 

127 78}  169..., 59J- 

128 .78J  170 58J 

129 77J-  171 58} 

130 77  172.., 58J 

131... 76f  173 57} 

132 75|  174 57} 

133 751  175 57J 

134 74f  176 7 56} 

135 74  177 56| 

136 73J  178 55J 

137 73  179 65} 

138 721  180 551 

139 72  181 55J 

140 71}  182 55 

141 71  183 54} 

142 70|  184 54i 

143 69J  185 54 

144 69}  186 53} 

145 , 69  187. 53} 

146 68}  188 53i 

147 68  189 , 53 

148 67}  190 52| 

149 67  191 52f 

150 65f  192 52J 

151 66J  193.... 51 J 

152 65}  194 , 51J 


408  CEIMES   OP  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Value  of  a  Value  of  a 

Prem-  Current  Dollar.         Prem.  Current  Dollar. 


195 51  j     198 , 5QJ 

196 51       199 50J 

197 50f     200 50 

These  gamblers  would  induce  bankruptcy  anywhere,  and  we 
cannot  hope  to  avert  the  hand  of  fate. 

The  following  illustrates  to  simple  minds  the  process  of  ruin : 

1.  $1.50  in  paper  buys  one  dollar  in  gold.     The  $1.50 

in  paper  is  worth 66f 

2.  $1.25  in  paper  buys  $1.00  in  gold.     The$1.00  in  paper 

is  worth , , 80 

Amount  lost  on  each  dollar 13f  cts. 

Allowing  the  currency  to  be  $800,000,000. 

There  is  an  actual  loss  in  the  discrepancy  of  $107,000,000. 

Should  this  money  appreciate,  that  $1.60  of  paper  is  worth 
$1.00  in  gold,  then  the  paper  is  worth  52  J  cents  on  the  dollar. 
Then  there  is  a  distributed  loss  of  the  difference  of  $220,000,- 
000.  It  does  not  mend  the  matter  that  this  money  remains  in 
the  hands  of  Americans.  So  does  the  money  won  and  lost 
among  gamblers,  with  this  difference,  that  gamblers  play  back 
with  the  chances  of  loss,  and  risk  their  purse.  In  this  game,  as 
fast  as  the  money  is  won  of  the  people,  it  is  carefully  funded  in 
gold  and  silver,  preparatory  to  the  coming  storm  which  Heaven 
will  not  avert,  although  it  fall  with  pitiless  rage  upon  the 
poor. 

The  following  is  a  statement  of  the  bank  note  circulation  of 
the  country  at  various  periods  of  highest  and  lowest  issues  prior 
to  the  war : 

January,  1830 $   61,324,000 

1835 103,692,495 

1836 140,301,038 

1837 149,185,890 

1843 , ,...  58,564,000 

1856 195,747,950 

1857 214,778,822 

"         1858 155,208,344 

1860 207,102,200 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  409 

It  will  be  noticed  by  the  statement  that  the  bank  note  circu 
lation  of  the  United  States  increased  from  $61,324,000  to  $149,- 
185,890  between  the  1st  of  January,  1830,  and  the  1st  of  Janu 
ary,  1837,  in  which  latter  year  the  great  financial  collapse  took 
place,  fell  from  $149,185,890  in  1837,  to  $58,564,000  in  1843, 
and  rose  to  $214,778,822  on  the  first  of  January,  1857,  in  which 
year  the  next  severe  crisis  occurred ;  falling  during  that  year  to 
$155,208,344,  and  rising  to  $207,102,000  on  the  1st  of  January, 
1860. 

The  following  is  a  statement  of  bank  deposits  and  loans  in  the 
same  years : 

Years.  Deposits,  Loans. 

January  1,  1830 $  55,560,000  $200,451,000 

1835 « 83,081,000  365,163,000 

"            1836 115,104,000  457,506,000 

"            1837 127,397,000  525,115,000 

"            1843 56,168,000  254,544,000 

"            1856 212,706,000  634,183,000 

"            1857 230,351,000  684,456,000 

"            1858 e 185,932,000  583,165,000 

"            1860 253,802,000  691,945,000 

On  the  30th  of  September,  the  date  of  their  last  quarterly  re 
ports,  the  deposits  and  loans  of  the  national  banks  (the  Secretary 
has  no  reliable  returns  of  these  items  from  the  few  remaining 
State  banks)  were  as  follows  : 

Deposits,  individual  and  government $544,150,194 

Loans 485,314,029 

To  which  should  be  added  — 

Investments  in  U.  S.  bonds  and  other  U.  S.  securi 
ties $427,731,600 


?913,045,629 

These  figures  are  a  history  in  themselves,  exhibiting  not  only 
the  past  and  present  condition  of  the  country  in  matters  of  ex 
ceeding  interest,  but  indicating  unerringly  the  dangerous  direc 
tion  in  which  the  financial  current  is  sweeping. 


410  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR. 

On  the  1st  January,  in  the  memorable  year  1837,  the  bank 
note  circulation  of  the  United  States  was  $149,185,890,  the  de 
posits  were  $127,397,000,  the  loans  $525,115,000.  In  January, 
1857,  the  year  of  the  next  great  crisis,  the  circulation  was  $214,- 
778,822,  the  deposits  were  $230,351,000,  the  loans  $684,456,000. 
There  are  no  statistics  to  exhibit  the  amount  of  specie  actually 
in  circulation  in  those  periods,  but  it  would  be  a  liberal  estimate 
to  put  it  at  $30,000,000  for  1837,  and  $50,000,000  for  1857. 

The  above  report,  exhibits  all  of  the  premonitory  symptoms 
of  bankruptcy  which  we  are  now  suffering  under  our  present 
irresponsible  banking  system.  Its  failures,  frauds,  robberies, 
tricks,  and  overreachings,  form  its  chief  legal  learning  and  litera 
ture. 

The  impossibility  of  the  redemption  of  the  national  bank 
currency,  becomes  each  day  more  absolute  by  its  expansion. 

A  cursory  observation  of  this  table  leaves  the  impression  that 
the  banking  system  cannot  explode. 

The  banks  have  always  more  loaned  out  than  the  amount  of 
their  circulation  and  their  deposits.  Whence  the  insolvency  ? 
The  solution  is  easy. 

In  the  first  place,  the  banks  loan  nothing  but  a  promise  to 
pay,  when  they  have  nothing  to  pay  that  promise  with.  The 
specie  in  the  vaults  of  the  banks  is  never  more  in  careful  times 
than  one-tenth  of  the  value  of  their  circulation. 

In  the  second  place,  as  fast  as  the  banks  issue  their  notes, 
they  gather  up  the  coin  and  hoard  it  where  the  responsibilities 
of  the  bank  may  not  reach  it,  and  substitute  paper  in  its  stead; 
then  the  banks  break  up  their  debtors  by  the  extortions  of 
usury  for  their  own  worthless  promises  to  pay. 

All  this  goes  well  enough,  until  somebody  wants  gold  and 
silver  in  considerable  amounts,  which  the  bank  is  not  able  to 
pay.  This  brings  everybody  to  their  senses.  Everybody  then 
rushes  to  the  bank;  the  bank  closes,  and  can't  pay.  It 
issues  its  notes  on  other  banks,  in  payment  to  save  itself,  and 
other  banks  do  precisely  likewise,  and  each  depends  on  the 
other  in  a  circle,  all  falling  together.  Having  nothing  to  save 
themselves,  they  cannot  hope  to  save  each  other. 

This  very  evil  is  now  on  the  banking   system.     The  bank 


CRIMES  OP  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  411 

notes  have  supplanted  the  greenbacks,  which  will  soon  be  de 
stroyed.  Then  the  bank  notes  can  not  be  redeemed  with  green 
backs,  but  must  be  with  gold  and  silver.  This  the  banks  have 
not,  nor  have  the  people.  The  banks  will  explode,  the  people 
will  have  no  money,  can  pay.  no  debts,  and  must  then  abandon 
their  property  or  repudiate.  Confidence  will  give  way,  and 
then  the  banking  system  ceases,  just  as  Mormonism,  Mahom- 
medanism,  and  every  other  fraud  vanishes  with  the  touch  of 
analysis.  With  this  will  come  ruin,  disaster,  crime,  distress  and 
disappointment,  with  all  of  the  evils  incident  to  universal  bank 
ruptcy.  But  terrible  as  this  may  be,  we  will  be  amply  compen 
sated  by  the  relief  which  it  will  bring  to  the  people. 


412  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

JOHN  LAW  AND  CHASE,  WITH  THEIR  RESPECTIVE  SYSTEMS. 

INSANITY  feeds  on  extravagance  seasoned  with  absurdity.    Fi 
nancial  insanity  has  a  specific  villainy  in  its  composition  and  shows 
signs  of  intelligent  aberrations,  which  makes  the  compound  the 
most  dangerous  manifestation  of  craziness  known  to  the  philoso 
phy  of  minds  and   money.     Our  insane  philosophers  are  of  a 
different  character,  and  rather  use  the  insanity  of  others  to  profit 
and  play  upon  the  imagination  of  the  victims,  while  they  very 
philosophically  pocket  the  proceeds  of  their  speculation.     This 
class  of  financiers  avail  themselves  of  the  intoxication  of  the  people, 
upon  some  abstract  question  which  has  no  legitimate  connection 
with  the  public  prosperity,  but  the  agitation  of  which  will  provoke 
civil  or  foreign  wars,  and  inaugurate  a  credit  system,  out  of  which 
the  shrewd  can  coin  fortunes  of  the  blood  and  miseries  of  the  peo 
ple,  who  are  used  as  passive  instruments  in  the  transaction.    When 
this  condition  of  things  is  contemplated,  history  is  ransacked  to 
find  examples  and  precedents  upon  which  to  build  the  bubble, 
— with  the  same  care  that  builders  look  through  the  various  systems 
of  architecture  for  plans  0:1  whicjh.  to  rear  their  courts  and 
temples.     The  projectors  of  our  scheme  exerted  all  their  powers 
of  research  for  this  same  purpose.     John  Law  is  their  patron 
saint  of  financial  glory ;  and  the  assignats  and  mandats  of  Mira- 
beau  and  Robespierre,  their  beau  ideals  of  national  currency.    Sec 
retary  Chase  had  searched  every  financial  history  to  discover  the 
most  refined  means  of  robbing  the  people  without  their  knowledge, 
and  plotting  their  ruin  by  indirection.     There  was  nothing  left 
undone  in  this  way;    he  found   and   adopted  it.       He  gained 
the  most  extraordinary  victory  over  the  people.     He  who  had 
overturned  the  most  essential  branch  of  civil  government,  was 
appointed  to  administer  the  law,  give  sanction  to  its  violation  and 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  413 

cover  up  his  crimes  and  defaults,  which  have  been  so  complicated, 
and  so  easily  susceptible  of  obliteration.  John  Law  was  the  son 
of  an  Edinburgh  goldsmith,  and  born  in  1681.  He  commenced 
active  business  as  a  revenue  officer,  soon  after  the  union  of  Scot 
land  and  England,  when  the  revenue  was  in  great  disorder.  At 
this  early  day,  Law  projected  the  establishment  of  a  bank,  with 
paper  issue  to  the  amount  of  the  value  of  all  the  lands  in  the 
kingdom.  His  scheme  was  promptly  rejected  with  scarcely  an 
entertainment  by  British  statesmen.  But  it  was  the  child  of  his 
fertile  genius,  the  only  offspring  of  his  brain,  which  he  cherished, 
until  it  ruined  him  and  left  an  Empire  in  ruins,  and  its  whole 
population  suffering  all  that  is  common  and  peculiar  to  the  over 
throw  of  business  and  commerce.  The  story  of  John  Law 
and  French  speculation,  the  Mississippi  bubble  and  Gaulish  ex 
travagance,  has  been  painted  by  the  peerless  pen  of  "Washington 
Irving.  It  will  not  bear  imitation.  Law  was  a  gambler  and 
adventurer  of  the  school  of  fine  gentlemen.  He  fought  a  duel 
and  killed  a  gentleman  who  fought  to  vindicate  his  sister,  whom 
Law  had  debauched;  he  fled  the  kingdom  to  escape  punishment, 
and  gave  a  romantic  turn  to  his  escapade  by  running  away  with 
another  man's  wife.  He  soon  spent  the  small  estate  left  him  by 
his  father.  He  visited  Genoa  and  Venice,  from  both  of  which 
cities  he  was  banished  as  a  desiguing  adventurer.  At  Turin  he 
proposed  his  financial  scheme  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  who  treated 
it  and  himself  in  the  same  manner  with  the  statesmen  and  bank 
ers  of  England.  Law,  like  every  other  scheming  fanatic,  knew 
no  limit  to  his  energy,  and  at  last  found  his  friend  in  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  who  was  then  regent  of  the  kingdom.  His  scheme 
proposed  to  pay  the  debt  of  the  nation,  which  was  to  be  assumed 
by  an  association,  who  would  make  enough  in  the  operation  to 
pay  themselves  for  their  labor.  The  Duke  of  Savoy  repulsed 
Law  by  assuring  him  that  he  was  not  rich  enough  to  turn  spend 
thrift. 

The  basis  of  this  system  was  confidence,  and  the  Comptroller 
General  Desmarets  had  to  reject  it,  because  confidence  in  every 
thing  was  destroyed. 

The  Duke  of  Orleans  had  two  thousand  million  of  francs  na 
tional  debt.  The  country  was  at  peace.  The  people  taken  cap- 


414  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

tive  by  novelty,  were  prepared  for  anything  which  wore  a  new 
face  or  promised  indemnity  to  speculation,  and  offered  some  new 
plan  for  capital  to  absorb  the  labor  of  the  country,  by  making 
the  laborers  believe  that  they  were  living  upon  the  products  of 
capital.  Law  first  established  a  bank  of  his  own.  He  soon 
induced  the  regent  to  make  it  a  bank  of  government  deposit  for 
all  of  the  revenue  of  the  kingdom;  it  afterwards  became  the 
great  actuary  of  the  Mississippi  Company,  which  promised  riches 
to  every  body.  The  public  grew  wild  with  the  excitement,  and 
the  prospect  of  gain,  drove  the  unemployed  capital  of  Paris  to 
seek  a  permanent  investment  in  the  joint  stock  of  the  Mississippi 
Company.  Such  was  the  spirit  of  this  public  gambling,  that 
men  exchanged  their  houses,  stores,  and  means  of  living,  for  shares 
in  the  great  concentrated  capital  of  the  Mississippi  Company. 
The  bank  paper,  at  first  distrusted,  was  now  circulated  with 
startling  profusion ;  it  first  doubled,  soon  quadrupled  its  circula 
tion,  and  the  people  dreamed  it  wealth,  and  made  it  the  basis  of 
a  fearful  extravagance.  Every  body  and  every  profession  indulg 
ed  in  every  manner  of  luxury,  which  soon  made  its  way  into 
those  countries  which  held  commercial  intercourse  with  France, 
and  quietly  carried  off  her  gold,  while  her  people  were  intoxicated 
with  the  profusion  of  paper  money. 

John  Law's  bank  was  declared  "KING'S  BANK."  In  1718,  it 
monopolized  the  trade  of  Senegal,  acquired  the  privilege  of  the 
old  East  India  Company,  founded  by  the  great  French  states 
man,  Colbert,  but  which  had  suddenly  fatten  into  decay  and 
abandoned  its  trade.  To  the  merchants  of  Saint  JVlabo,  it  under 
took  to  collect  the  public  revenue;  indeed,  so  absorbing  was  the 
business  and  scope  of  Law's  bank,  that  all  business  seemed  as  a 
mere  appendage  to  it,  and  the  finances  of  the  kingdom  were  at 
the  mercy  of  this  corporation  of  mere  traders.  This  corporation 
presented  a  grandeur  of  establishment,  and  commanded  such  a 
vast  variety  of  interest,  and  seemed  based  upon  so  solid  a  foun 
dation,  that  its  stock  augmented  to  twenty  times  beyond  its  origi 
nal  value. 

The  courtiers,  adventurers,  and  gamblers,  were  living  upon  this 
public  frenzy,  which  it  was  within  the  power,  and  certainly  the 
duty  of  the  regent  to  have  promptly  arrested,  which  he  could  at 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  415 

any  time  have  done  and  saved  the  people  from  the  consequent 
disaster;  but  his  immediate  friends  were  making  an  apparent  for 
tune  in  the  general  carnival,  he  looked  no  further  than  the  pres 
ent,  and  let  the  future  take  care  of  itself.  The  disorders  of  the 
currency  became  the  source  of  their  wealth.  The  fluctuations  in 
the  value  of  their  stock  conferred  upon  men  heretofore  unknown, 
immense  wealth,  which,  when,  with  proper  foresight,  they  con 
verted  into  other  property,  left  them  independent.  In  the  short 
est  possible  period  of  time,  there  were  several  who  accumulated 
princely  fortunes.  Law  himself,  seduced  by  system  and  intoxi 
cated  by  the  general  drunkenness  of  society,  had  fabricated  so 
many  bills  that  his  chimerical  value  of  paper  in  1719,  was  eighty 
times  greater  than  all  of  the  specie  circulation  in  the  kingdom. 
The  government  paid  in  paper  all  of  the  State  stock.  The  re 
gent  could  no  longer  control  a  machine  so  immense,  so  compli 
cated,  and  the  rapid  movement  of  which  hurried  him  away  in 
spite  of  himself. 

The  old  school  financiers  combined  with  the  banks  to  drain 
the  royal  bank,  by  drawing  considerable  sums  in  specie  from  it 
every  day.  This  made  every  one  try  to  convert  his  paper  into 
gold.  This  was  impossible,  as  it  always  is  in  the  great  expansion 
of  a  credit  system  based  upon  confidence  merely.  The  dispro 
portion  of  specie  to  the  paper  issued,  is  enormous.  Credit  now 
began  to  find  a  foundation  of  fact,  and  exploded  with  a  terrible 
crash.  Then  came  the  expedients  which  are  always  resorted  to 
by  princes,  to  save  the  sinking  credit  of  the  paper  system.  The 
regent  issued  edicts,  but  they  were  powerless.  A  real  distress 
naturally  succeeded  to  so  much  fictitious  wealth.  After  this, 
Law  was  appointed  Comptroller-General  of  Finances,  at  the  very 
time  when  it  was  utterly  out  of  his  power  to  perform  the  very 
duties  of  the  station  for  which  he  was  especially  called.  In  1720? 
a  year  marked  by  the  total  subversion  of  private  fortunes,  and 
the  ruins  of  the  finance  of  the  kingdom,  Law  changed  his  alle 
giance  and  religion,  became  a  French  Catholic,  and  lord  of  a 
splendid  manor.  The  banker  was  metamorphosed  into  a  Minis 
ter  of  State.  He  was  the  associate  of  dukes,  peers,  marshals 
of  France,  and  bishops  of  the  Church,  in  the  halls  of  the  palace. 
He  had  not  long  been  in  his  official  position,  until  disorder  was 


416  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

at  its  height.  The  Parliament  of  Paris  opposed  the  follies  of 
Lav/,  and  was  driven  from  Paris  to  Pontoise,  by  the  Prince,  who 
still  stood  by  Law  with  a  royal  fidelity.  But  before  half  a  year 
of  his  official  life  had  transpired,  John  Law  was  driven,  by  the 
ruined  rabble,  from  Paris;  carrying  with  him  scarcely  anything 
of  all  his  vast  accumulations,  the  merest  figment  of  his  evan 
escent  opulence. 

The  Dutch  and  the  English  imbibed  the  spirit  of  stock-gam 
bling,  and  built  up  rapid  and  immense  fortunes,  upon  the  public 
credulity. 

Amsterdam  and  London  became  largely  involved  in  the  same 
general  folly,  succeeded  by  the  same  general  distress ;  each  sys 
tem  of  swindling,  never  failed  to  find  dupes  among  the  people. 
Associations  were  formed  to  carry  on  imaginary  commerce.  Rot 
terdam  was  ruined  for  a  time.  London  was  overwhelmed  in 
1720. 

There  resulted,  from  this  mania  in  France  and  England,  a 
prodigious  number  of  failures,  fraud,  public  and  private  robber 
ies,  and  all  of  the  moral  depravity  consequent  upon  ungovernable 
cupidity. 

But  the  abundance  of  money,  and  apparent  wealth,  reconciled 
the  people  to  every  species  of  usurpation  which,  at  other  times, 
in  the  history  of  France,  would  have  precipitated  a  general  rev 
olution. 

The  notable  points  of  resemblance  between  Chase  and  Law, 
are  very  remarkable.  Both  were  demagogues ;  both  were  stock- 
gamblers  ;  both  rode  into  position  under  false  pretences ;  both 
were  for  a  time  successful.  Law  kept  his  mistress,  and  intro 
duced  her  into  the  royal  palace,  where  she  felt  annoyed  by  the 
presence  of  the  real  ladies  of  France,  and  said  "  there  was  not 
so  tiresome  an  animal  in  the  world  as  a  duchess."  Chase  changed 
the  Treasury  Department  into  a  harem,  where  the  seraglios  of 
vile  women  were  ostensibly  employed  in  the  service  of  the  gov 
ernment  :  yet  kept  for  the  most  degrading  purposes,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Comptroller,  who,  being  retained  by  the  Secre 
tary  in  his  place,  voluntarily  submitted  to  bearing  the  odium  of 
the  published  scandal  for  the  salary  of  office,  and  the  vain-glo 
rious  privilege  of  appearing  upon  the  fifty  cent  fractional  cur- 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK.  417 

rency.  Law  traveled  in  state ;  Chase  exceeded  this.  He  coast 
ed  the  land  in  government  vessels,  at  the  public  expense,  amount 
ing  to  many  times  the  whole  salary  appropriated  to  him  by  the 
government. 

Law  enriched  himself,  but  Chase  endowed  near  relatives  with 
special  privileges,  and  made  merchants  and  banking  princes,  with 
his  wonderful  munificence.  The  careful  analogist  will  see  those 
natural  and  striking  peculiarities  in  Law  developed  in  Chase. 
After  reading  the  advertisement,  for  the  sale  of  bonds,  the  fol 
lowing  will  certainly  exhibit  the  immediate  fruits  in  a  style 
startling  to  the  simplicity  of  republican  institutions : 

A  lady,  who  has  been  on  a  visit  to  Mr.  Jay  Cooke's  new  pala 
tial  mansion,  near  Philadelphia,  whose  foundations  were  built 
on  the  blood  and  bones,  and  skeletons  of  American  citizens, 
slain  in  hostile  combat,  thus  writes : 

"  I  can't  describe  what  it  is  like.  I  don't  think  anything 
grander,  more  beautiful,  more  splendid,  or  more  in  keeping,  could 
be  imagined.  And  the  Cookes  are  just  the  kind  of  people  to 
live  in  it.  L.  is  a  perfect  brunette,  and  her  sister  S.,  who  is 
younger,  is  a  blonde.  L.'s  room  is  furnished  in  bright  crimson 
satin,  and  S.'s  in  light  blue  satin.  Just  beyond  their  rooms  is 
still  another  bedroom,  which  belongs  to  the  girls,  and  is  called 
the  spare  bedroom,  and  is  intended  for  any  friend  whom  they 
wish  to  invite  to  visit  them.  C.  was  occupying  this  room. 
Everything  in  the  house,  with  the  exception  of  Mrs.  Cookers 
boudoir  and  a  few  of  the  paintings,  is  American.  Mr.  Cooke 
would  have  nothing  else.  In  the  sitting-room  is  a  large,  old  fash 
ioned,  open  fire-place,  with  andirons,  which  Mr.  Cooke's  mother 
presented  to  him.  There  is  every  kind  of  room  in  the  house 
that  you  could  think  of —  billiard-room ;  amusement  room, 
where  they  have  a  regular  stage,  foot-lights,  &c.;  music  room, 
where  they  have  an  elegant  square  grand  Chickering  piano.  I 
can't  tell  you  of  all  the  rooms,  for  it  would  take  me  all  night, 
and  even  then,  you  wouldn't  have  a  very  clear  idea  of  them." 

This  is,  perhaps,  a  fair  description  of  Secretary  Chase's  facto 
tum,  who  accompanied  him  on  his  pleasure  excursions. 

This  fortune  coined  of  misfortune ;  this  wealth  extracted  from 
poverty ;  this  magnificence  built  of  the  self-denial  of  cabins  and 
hovels,  is  explained  by  the  picture  of  the  people  who  pay  the 
interest  on  the  bonds  sold  to  Mr.  Jay  Cooke. 
27 


418  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

"  The  average  density  of  population  in  New  York  city,  is 
equal  to  32,000  per  square  mile,  its  1100  acres  of  parks  and- 
other  open  spaces,  being  included  in  the  estimate.  This 
gives  to  each  person  a  space  twelve  yards  long  by  eight 
wide,  in  which  to  live  and  move  and  have  his  being.  But 
this  breathing  space  is  very  unevenly  distributed,  for  while 
the  resident  of  the  12th  ward  may  claim  upon  a  fair  division 
with  his  neighbors,  596  square  yards  for  his  individual  com 
fort,  the  dweller  in  the  hovels  and  tenement  shells  of  the 
10th  ward  must  be  thankful  for  seventeen  yards ;  and  he  who 
worries  through  a  fevered  sleep  in  the  llth  ward,  can  claim  but 
sixteen.  These  estimates  include  streets  and  other  open  spaces, 
so  that  the  curious  in  such  matters  may  judge  of  the  close  com 
panionship  which  is  enforced  in  these  localities,  where  men,  women, 
and  children,  were  packed  at  the  rate  of  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
six  thousand  to  the  square  mile.  In  other  words,  as  shown  by 
the  tables  which  we  published,  the  tract  bounded  by  Division 
street,  the  Bowery,  East  Fourteenth  street  and  the  East  river, 
comprising  the  10th,  llth,  13th  and  17th  wards,  and  contain 
ing  1.16  square  miles,  is  populated  by  196,441  persons,  a 
greater  number  than  were  possessed  by  any  city  in  the  Union  in 
1860,  excepting  New  York,  Brooklyn,  Philadelphia,  and  Balti 
more.  The  10th  ward  has  more  people  than  Jersey  City,  Hart 
ford  or  Mobile  had  at  that  time;  the  llth  exceeds  the  limits  at 
that  time  of  Charleston,  Detroit,  Pittsburg,  Providence  or  San 
Francisco;  while  the  17th,  covering  but  about  one-half  square 
mile,  contains  more  people  than  did  Albany,  Louisville  or 
Washington." 

This  condition  of  the  poor  is  the  penalty  paid  by  the  poor  to 
the  rich,  and  the  calculation  is  easy.  Just  compute  the  amount 
spent  and  consumed  on  such  palaces,  divide  it  by  wages  of  poor 
men,  and  you  then  have  the  number  necessary  to  keep  it ;  double 
the  number,  then  you  have  the  number  of  Jay  Cookers  slaves 
who  live  on  half  fare. 

Here  closes  the  analogy  between  these  two  men. 

Law  was  impelled,  contrary  to  his  better  judgment,  to  accept 
the  highest  financial  position  in  the  French  Government,  just  at 
a  time  when  he  could  not  make  it  available  for  either  himself  or 
the  Government.  Upon  the  other  hand, 

Chase  was  driven  on  to  the  Supreme  Bench,  to  rid  Lincoln  of 
a  Presidential  rival,  at  a  time  when  the  Bench  could  bring  him 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL    WAR.  419 

no  honors,  nor  his  services  contribute  anything  to  the  jurispru 
dence  of  the  country.  Law  left  the  country  in  disguise,  fleeing 
before  the  multitudes  who  had  been  ruined  by  his  profligacy. 
Chase  shifted  his  responsibility,  and,  entering  upon  his  new 
career,  exemplified  precisely  the  same  ability  for  the  judicial 
ermine,  that  he  had  shown  for  the  exchequer  —  to  defile  and  de 
stroy  it.  As  a  Chief  Justice  of  a  Court  before  which  all  dis 
putes  must  be  adjudicated,  he  anticipated  his  judgments  in  Bank, 
in  his  political  harangues  among  crazy,  illiterate  barbarians,  in 
New  Orleans,  Charleston  and  Washington ;  and  in  like  manner 
before  New  England  colleges,  upon  the  very  questions  upon 
which  he  would  be  called  to  decide,  as  the  principal  member  of 
the  Court  of  last  resort.  William  Sprague,  a  young,  stupid  and 
wealthy  inebriate,  who  represents  Rhode  Island  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  married  the  daughter  of  the  Secretary,  and  con 
trolled  the  speculations  in  cotton,  amounting  to  many  millions 
of  dollars.  To  accommodate  an  evening  party,  Mrs.  Sprague 
built  a  special  house  for  her  ball-room,  for  an  evening  carousal, 
at  a  heavy  cost,  and  tore  it  away  the  next  morning,  in  imitation 
of  the  extravagance  of  the  reign  of  Nero,  which  every  Depart 
ment  seemed  anxious  to  emulate. 


420  CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

SQUANDERING  THE  PUBLIC  LANDS  THE  BASIS  OF  STOCK-GAMBLING. 

THE   PRETEXT   FOR   STOCK-GAMBLING    IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
TO  PREVENT  THE  EARLY  PAYMENT  OF  THE  PUBLIC  DEBT. 

THE  history  of  stock  gambling,  which  has  been  many  times 
written  by  graphic  pens,  Avould  justify  repetition,  if  not  ampli 
fication,  did  time  and  space  permit. 

The  great  power  and  evil  of  this  system,  is,  that  it  enables 
companies  and  individuals  to  treat  the  public  credits  and  debts 
as  gamblers  do  cards,  giving  to  stocks  a  public  value  different 
from  the  real  value,  making  due  allowances  for  the  possible  rise 
or  fall  in  the  market.  In  these  transactions  there  are  always 
two  persons  engaged  : — the  one  who  understands  well  the  mar 
ket,  and  the  other  who  thinks  that  he  does,  but  does  not;  —  in 
simple  language,  the  shrewd  who  win,  and  the  conceited  who 
lose. 

This  system  is  the  source  of  fabulous  wealth,  and  embraces  all 
of  the  modern  theories  of  banking  tariff,  wars,  and  consequent 
public  debts  and  credits.  It  is  the  faro  bank  of  our  present 
system  of  politics.  It  capitalizes  everything,  and  places  a  pros 
pective,  rather  than  an  actual  value  upon  all  property ;  and  upon 
the  products,  profits  and  appreciations  of  property,  audits  com 
binations,  and  pretends  to  fairly  divide  the  difference  between 
the  present  and  prospective  value  of  representative  paper. 

Since  the  invention  of  old-fashioned  falsehood  in  the  infernal 
regions,  there  has  perhaps  never  been  a  system  of  such  universal 
fraud,  as  that  of  stock-gambling.  It  is  the  first-born  child  of 
paper  money,  and  the  parent  of  all  the  evils,  crimes  and  decep 
tions,  corruptions  and  frauds,  incident  to  periodical  and  wide 
spread  bankruptcy,  in  which  the  great  body  of  a  people  are 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR.  421 

ruined  in  their  property,  which  has  been  absorbed  by  the  cunning 
few.  This  form  of  wickedness  and  source  of  sorrow,  cannot 
exist  without  debt  and  public  calamities,  upon  which  it  feeds  and 
creates. 

The  art  of  printing  facilitates  this  mode  of  gambling  in  latter 
times,  when  it  embraces  in  its  range,  railroads,  telegraphs,  salt, 
oil,  cotton,  woolen  and  iron  manufactures,  and  everything  which 
has  a  doubtful  or  problematical  value. 

The  debt  of  Great  Britain,  contracted  by  the  Revolution  of 
1688,  was  perhaps  the  foundation  of  extensive  stock-gambling 
in  England.  Upon  this  the  Bank  of  England  was  established  in 
1697,  which  loaned  the  amount  of  its  capital  stock  to  the  gov 
ernment.  The  ambrotypes  of  this  debt  were  issued  in  the  form 
of  bank  notes.  From  that  day  to  this,  in  every  country  where 
confidence  can  be  commanded,  to  mortgage  property  upon  the 
facile  promises  of  gentlemen,  bank  notes  are  freely  issued,  and 
other  forms  of  security  enter  into  the  circulating  medium. 

The  South  Sea  Joint  Stock  Company,  John  Law's  Mississippi 
bubble,  with  its  explosion  of  business  and  its  train  of  miseries, 
which  the  great  common  sense  of  Colbert,  the  financial  expe 
rience  of  Turgot,  and  versatile  genius  of  Necker,  could  only 
baffle,  until  the  elements  of  discord  sought  vent  in  Revolution. 
This  Revolution,  having  no  money  upon  which  to  carry  on  its  wars, 
gave  rise  to  a  stock-jobbing,  which  reached  the  fabulous  sum  of 
$8,437,535,000. 

The  stock-gambling  of  the  world  has  been  reduced  to  a  sys 
tem,  and  has  its  markets,  and  boards  of  trade.  Boards  of  trade 
were  established  in  France,  at  Toulon  in  1549,  at  Rouen  1556, 
in  London  by  Elizabeth  in  person  in  1566.  The  Parisian 
Bourse  was  established  in  1724. 

The  first  stock-gambling  in  America  grew  out  of  the  Conti 
nental  money,  which  was  issued  to  the  amount  of  $359,000,000, 
in  a  population  of  not  more  than  3,500,000.  This  vast  amount 
of  irredeemable  paper  was  reduced  by  a  certain  kind  of  funding, 
to  $76,000,000  in  1795;  and  finally  to  $39,135,000  in  1812. 
The  necessities  of  the  war  of  the  Revolution  induced  this  sys 
tem,  but  the  determined  virtue  of  our  fathers,  who  were  weary 
and  ruined  by  a  paper  wealth,  made  them  restive  under  its 
perpetuity. 


422  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK. 

There  was,  however,  one  mode  in  which  the  most  extravagant 
profligacy  might  be  indulged  unsuspected,  under  various  false 
pretences,  and  build  up  a  system  of  stock-gambling  in  the  dis 
tribution  of  the  public  lands. 

The  public  lands  were  given  in  trust  by  the  older  States  for 
the  payment  of  the  public  debt,  and  held  sacred  for  that  pur 
pose. 

In  our  earlier  history,  from  this  there  was  no  digression. 

But  for  several  years  these  lands  had  been  used  as  the  basis 
of  a  system  of  stock-gambling,  under  the  shallow  and  false  pre 
tense  of  giving  bounties  to  soldiers.  This  commenced  in  the 
payment  of  the  soldiers  of  the  earlier  wars,  then  to  the  Mexican 
soldiers,  then  was  extended  to  the  surviving  soldiers  of  the  war 
of  1812,  then  to  soldiers  of  the  Black  Hawk,  Florida,  and  other 
Indian  wars. 

These  gifts  were  ostensibly  bestowed  upon  the  soldier  or  his 
legal  representatives,  but  in  fact,  was  a  scrip  issued  for  the  bene 
fit  of  stock-gamblers,  bought  up  for  a  few  drinks  of  whiskey,  in 
the  certificates  of  discharge ;  and  of  all  the  scrip  issued,  not  one 
soldier,  or  his  family,  in  every  fifty,  received  any  benefit  from  this 
scrip,  and  it  was  not  intended  that  they  should.  The  whole 
scheme  was  one  laid  by  Congressmen  and  speculators,  to  swindle 
both  the  soldiers  and  the  government,  and  the  scheme  was  a 
success.  You  may  now  see  homeless  Mexican  soldiers  wander 
ing  through  the  land,  who  sold  their  certificates  of  discharge  for 
a  meal's  victuals  or  a  night's  lodging,  under  the  very  shadow  of 
palaces  reared  by  the  money  coined  of  their  blood.  In  this 
way  the  double  wrong  was  perpetrated,  the  soldier  robbed  of 
his  legitimate  pension,  and  the  government  defrauded  of  the 
richest  mineral  mountains,  and  the  most  productive  valleys  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth. 

Just  at  the  time  when  this  sacred  trust-fund  should  have  been 
scrupulously  appropriated  to  the  payment  of  the  public  debt, 
now  frightfully  augmenting,  it  was  under  charitable  pretences 
converted  into  scrip,  which  soon  found  its  way  into  the  coffers  of 
the  brokers. 

Lands  were  granted  to  build  agricultural  colleges,  under  pre 
tence  of  educating  the  poor  of  the  country,  to  till  the  land.  This 
was  a  double  fraud  in  the  interest  of  stock-gambling. 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL.   WAR.  423 

First.  These  pieces  of  scrip  were  sold  at  less  than  one-half  of 
the  accredited  land  office  value,  to  build  these  colleges.  Second. 
When  the  colleges  are  built,  they  will  be  appropriated  to  the 
use  of  the  children  of  the  rich,  precisely  as  the  military  academy 
at  West  Point  and  other  military  institutions  have  been,  and  for 
the  purposes  of  education,  be  the  merest  farce. 

These  grants  were  unjust  in  principle  and  wrong  in  policy. 
If  the  general  government  has  power  to  educate  the  States  in 
specific  learning,  then  the  money  should  have  been  directly 
appropriated,  without  sacrifice  of  value. 

These  lands  were,  in  like  manner,  given  for  homesteads  with 
equal  injustice.  The  government  had  no  more  power  to  give 
away  the  public  lands,  than  it  had  to  appropriate  the  money  with 
which  they  are  bought,  to  buy  blacksmiths',  carpenters7,  or 
bricklayers7  tools  for  young  people  just  entering  the  trade. 

This  extravagant  waste  of  the  resources  of  the  country  is  but 
a  part  of  the  funding  system,  to  make  stock-jobbing  a  perpetual 
institution,  for  which  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  government 
may  establish  a  bureau ;  and,  like  the  French,  subjected  to  gov 
ernment  espionage,  as  they  have  already  disposed  of  other  gaming, 
houses  of  prostitution,  &c. 

This  is  a  humiliating  commentary  upon  both  our  wealth  and 
prosperity,  that  the  greatest  gold  producing  country  of  mod 
ern  times,  is  cursed  with  a  worthless,  irredeemable  currency, 
without  a  dollar  of  gold  for  business,  exchange,  or  commerce. 
But  this  comes  of  stock-gambling,  and  will  continue  with  it. 

Is  this  not  sorrowful,  that  in  less  than  five  years  from  the 
beginning  of  our  indebtedness,  we  were  paying  more  interest 
upon  our  debt  than  any  other  government  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth  ?  With  a  population  and  resources  greatly  inferior  to  that 
of  Great  Britain,  Russia,  or  France,  that  all  of  the  property, 
labor,  and  accumulation  of  three  centuries,  is  squandered  in  the 
fraudulent  enforcement  of  a  political  vagary  by  incompetent 
men, — all  for  a  war  which  may  be  repeated  at  every  period  when 
force  is  chosen,  instead  of  reason,  for  the  arbitrament  of  disputes, 
until  the  country  is  left  without  military  force,  financial  credit, 
or  the  semblance  of  justice  in  the  government,  or  freedom  iu  the 
spirit  of  the  people,  and  the  public  lands  held  to  secure  the  pay 
ment  squandered  without  a  purpose. 


424  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAK. 


CHAPTER   X. 

FRENCH  ASSIGNATS  AND  NATIONAL  BANK  NOTES. 

WHEN  Robespierre  had  thoroughly  engaged  the  French  people 
in  the  horribl  e  revolution,  he  was  puzzled  to  create  a  fund  to 
carry  on  a  war  which  promised  no  ending.  Those  who  held 
bullion  were  early  removing  their  effects  to  such  places  as  would 
elude  the  search  of  the  hungry  Jacobins.  The  banks,  of  course, 
would  surrender  nothing  to  politics,  and  there  was  but  this  one 
thing  left  to  Robespierre,  to  pledge  the  credit  of  his  revolution 
for  its  success.  If  it  succeeded,  to  pay  the  debt ;  if  it  failed,  to 
let  the  debt  go  in  the  general  defeat  with  the  rest.  When  he 
pledged  the  credit  of  his  bloody  usurpation,  he  assumed  to  pledge 
the  wealth,  honor,  and  military  strength  of  the  French  people 
for  the  scraps  of  paper,  which  promised  to  pay  vast  sums  of 
money  to  ravaging  armies,  for  destroying  their  property  and  lib 
erty  ;  to  usurpers  for  overturning  the  established  system  of  gov 
ernment  and  to  diplomats,  for  negotiating  with  foreign  govern 
ments,  to  recognize  the  new  condition  of  things.  For  this  pur 
pose  paper  money,  the  supple  tool  of  tyranny  in  all  modern 
governments,  was  the  first  subterfuge.  It  was  a  "  first  mort 
gage  "  upon  all  the  realty  and  personalty  of  France,  which  was 
not  only  a  legal  tender,  but  it  was  an  imprisonable  offence  to  re 
fuse  it  for  any  marketable  commodity  whatever.  The  revolu 
tionists  issued  their  legal  tender,  which  they  denominated  assig- 
nats ;  they  forced  the  issue  and  employed  violence,  to  make  the 
people  take  them  until  they  became  utterly  worthless.  The  his 
tory  of  this  currency  so  exactly  resembles  that  of  our  own  revo 
lutionists,  it  seems  the  emanation  of  the  same  brain,  based  upon 
the  same  political  theories,  with  the  same  precise  purpose  in 
view,  tending  to  analogous  results.  The  revolutionists  bore  a 
striking  resemblance  to  each  other.  The  boldly  avowed  plans 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WATS.  425 

of  Robespierre  were  not  more  shameful,  and  were  wonderfully 
similar  to  those  of  Stevens,  Greeley,  and  the  abler  revolutionists 
of  America.  The  people  of  France  could  not  be  expected  vol 
untarily  to  pay  the  expenses  of  revolution,  to  destroy  their 
national  glory,  their  proud  and  brilliant  history  by  fanatics,  any 
more  than  will  the  people  of  the  United  States,  when  they  re 
turn  to  reason,  implicitly  accept  the  transmitted  debt  to  pay  for 
the  overthrow  of  liberty  and  the  Constitution.  The  basis  of 
the  issue  of  the  assignats  and  that  of  the  debt  of  the  United 
States,  is  singularly  the  same.  The  payment  of  the  assignats 
and  the  payment  of  the  national  debt,  will  not  materially  differ 
in  the  end.  The  French  fanatics  declared  the  confiscation  of  all 
the  landed  property  of  the  clergy  of  the  kingdom,  and  with  the 
money  thus  derived,  proposed  to  redeem  the  assignats ;  400,000,- 
000  of  this  currency  were  issued  by  the  constituent  assembly, 
with  the  consent  of  Louis  XVI.,  before  he  was  led  to  the  block. 
Yielding  to  this  extravagant  demand,  was  the  first  unfortunate 
step  to  the  fatal  conclusion  of  his  reign. 

During  the  same  year,  Mirabeau,  to  enrich  himself,  his  family, 
friends,  and  immediate  partizans,  by  the  possession  of  the  lauded 
estates,  tried  to  secure  the  issue  of  2,000,000,000  new  assignats, 
was  prevented  only  by  wiser  members,  who  saw  through  the 
transparent  veil  which  failed  to  cover  up  his  designs. 

By  this  plan  the  rich  usurers  would  own  the  landed  estates  and 
wealth  of  the  nation,  which  was  insufficient  to  redeem  the  as 
signats  ;  in  this  wise,  they  would  own  both  and  hold  perpetual 
mortgage  on  the  labor  of  the  people. 

Precisely  in  this  way  have  the  usurers  and  adventurers  com 
bined  to  own  and  destroy  our  own  country ;  to  own  what  they 
could  not  destroy,  and  destroy  what  they  could  not  own.  The 
first  issue  of  legal  tender  was  based  upon  the  contemplated  con 
fiscation  of  the  property  of  the  Southern  States  as  the  means  of 
redemption. 

Thaddeus  Stevens  never  hesitated  to  declare  the  utter  impos 
sibility  of  the  payment  of  the  public  debt,  unless  they  confisca 
ted  the  property  of  the  South. 

Stevens  borrowed  his  views  of  Mirabeau,  that  the  holders  of 
securities  would  support  the  new  order  of  things  as  the  only 


426  CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

security  for  redemption;  both  assume  the  same  class  of  facts,  in 
volving  the  same  ruinous  theories. 

1.  That  the  only  hope  of  a  government  is  the  support  it  re 
ceives  from  capital.     Indeed,  the  labor  of  men,  horses,  and  ma 
chinery,  is  treated  as  the  property  of  the  capitalist,  and  as  differ 
ing  nothing  in  character  from  each  other. 

2.  That  those  who  are  not  owners  of  property,  will,  of  neces 
sity,  blindly  follow  the  dictation  of  capital. 

These  theories  could  not  outlive  the  spirit  of  revolution.  The 
French  and  American  revolutionists  would  enforce  and  record  a 
robbery  by  one  edict,  and  speak  most  delicately  of  honor  in  the 
next. 

In  all  of  their  complicated  theories,  they  overlooked  the  impos 
ing  financial  facts,  that  debts,  which  are  readily  contracted  by 
legislatures,  are  not  paid  by  legislative  enactments  alone,  but  by 
money  and  labor  extorted  from  the  people ;  that  no  resolution, 
declairing  a  debt  eternally  binding,  is  of  any  intrinsic  value, 
unless  the  debtor  is  able  to  pay  it. 

Each  were  repeating  the  foolish  delusion  upon  all  of  the  avenues 
of  trade,  that  the  debt  was  so  generally  distributed,  that  some  part 
of  it  was  due  to  every  body ;  which  is  always  the  case  in  all 
bankruptcies,  that  the  creditors  are  numerous  enough,  whilst 
every  thing  depends  upon  the  number  and  wealth  of  the  debtors. 

While  the  usurers  were  gathering  up  the  wealth  of  the  coun 
try,  to  share  it  with  the  demagogues,  who  were  distracting  the 
finances  by  legislation,  the  work  of  explosion  and  repudiation 
was  amply  providing  relief  for  the  people  and  quietly  working 
their  way  among  the  masses. 

The  issue  of  assignats  was  continued  until  they  reached  40,- 
000,000,000,  and  became  utterly  worthless,  like  continental  money 
and  confederate  currency. 

Every  argument  employed  by  Mirabeau,  has  been  repeated  in 
a  less  powerful  and  less  attractive  form  by  the  American  fanatics. 
Step  by  step  have  the  American  apes  played  second-hand  fiends 
to  the  arch-infer nals  of  Paris.  When  the  assignats  would  buy 
nothing  and  were  worth  nothing,  a  new  subterfuge  was  adopted 
to  supply  the  revolution  with  means  to  ruin  the  country.  The 
incendiaries  issued  600,000,000  of  mandats. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAK.  427 

In  1796,  they  issued  2,400,000,000  more  of  the  same  currency 
the  mandats  followed  the  assignats  in  the  downward  current. 

It  is  worthy  of  examination  to  trace  the  similarity  of  purpose 
and  action,  of  the  revolutionists  of  France  and  America. 

The  first  measure  of  each,  was  confiscation  as  the  basis  of  secu 
rity  for  a  circulating  medium. 

The  French  constituent  assembly,  representing  a  mere  faction 
of  the  French  people  under  the  audacious  lead  of  Mirabeau, 
placed  the  property  of  the  clergy  at  the  disposal  of  the  State,  by 
virtue  of  the  character  of  the  proprietors. 

The  majority  of  Congress,  representing  not  more  than  one- 
third  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  placed  the  property  of 
slaveholders  in  the  same  condition,  because  they  were  slavehold 
ers  by  law  and  inheritance. 

Confiscation  works  destruction  everywhere,  and  confiscated 
property  has  never  been  enjoyed,  because  the  lands  are  as  worth 
less  for  sale  as  they  are  dangerous  for  enjoyment. 

After  the  failure  of  the  assignats  and  confiscation,  the  property 
of  emigrants  was  sequestered  to  secure  the  mandats,  but  added 
nothing  to  their  value.  The  over  issue  of  money,  general  inse 
curity  of  person,  property,  and  every  thing  which  appealed  to 
law  for  protection,  destroyed  all  values.  The  extravagant  price 
of  every  thing,  the  distrust  of  the  producer  in  the  markets,  which 
they  would  gladly  have  abandoned  as  places  in  which  they  were 
driven  to  be  robbed,  alarmed  everybody.  The  speculators  and 
usurers  would  not  permit  the  wages  of  labor  to  keep  pace  with 
the  price  of  provisions,  since  this  would  destroy  their  schemes  of 
plunder. 

Capital  always  robs  labor,  for  there  is  nothing  else  to  rob. 

The  poor  complained  of  the  usurers,  the  extortioners,  and  the 
rich.  To  reduce  prices,  Marat  proposed  to  multiply  the  provis 
ion  stores,  and  at  his  instigation,  the  mob  was  let  loose  upon  the 
markets.  Finally,  goods  were  taken  without  payment,  grain 
diminished,  prices  increased.  At  length,  the  Convention  adopted 
the  Stevens  plea  of  making  trading  in  gold  a  penal  offence. 

Gold  dealers  were  subjected  to  severe  surveillance,  much  after 
the  style  of  the  present  system  of  liquor  manufactories,  with 
hired  spies  to  watch  the  business  as  it  transpired  before  them. 


428  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Each  new  proposed  alleviation  proved  a  new  evil.  The  tax- 
gatherers  ate  up  the  taxes,  the  revenue  collectors  ate  up  the  reve 
nue,  manufactures  ceased  work,  farms  were  abandoned,  relaxation 
of  the  revolutionary  rigor  only  hastened  the  downfall  of  their 
dynasty,  which  must  soon  have  died  in  any  event,  of  its  own  vio 
lence  and  extravagance.  The  very  rigor  of  the  law  to  sustain 
the  assignats,  precipitated  their  destruction. 

After  the  failure  of  successive  issues,  came  the  forced  loans 
from  the  rich.  To  such  poverty  was  the  country  reduced,  and 
such  was  the  worthlessness  of  the  assignats,  that  the  government 
enforced  the  payment  of  taxes  in  kind  produced  on  the  land. 

The  mandats  followed  the  assignats,  just  as  the  National  Bank 
currency  followed  the  issue  of  greenbacks.  The  assignats  were 
specially  secured,  the  mandats  were  secured  on  the  lands  gener 
ally.  The  mandats  soon  followed  the  assignats.  The  calamities 
of  this  monstrous  financial  profligacy  produced  more  wide-spread 
misery,  more  sudden  changes  from  comfort  to  poverty,  more  ini 
quity  in  transactions  between  both  individuals  and  the  govern 
ment,  more  losses  to  all  persons  engaged  in  every  department  of 
industry  and  trade,  more  discontent,  profligacy,  disturbance  and 
outrage,  than  the  massacre  in  September,  the  war  in  L'Vendee, 
the  proscriptions  in  the  provinces  and  all  the  sanguinary  violence 
of  the  reign  of  terror. 

This  fearful  finale  of  paper  money  in  France,  is  the  legitimate 
result  of  her  profligacy.  The  American  Congress  has  been  the 
exact  reflex  of  the  constituent  assembly.  The  gold  bill,  the  le 
gal  tender  bill,  the  gold-bearing  bond,  was  the  reproduction  of 
French  folly  and  crime,  with  this  one  difference : 

That  the  French  fanaticism,  somewhat  seasoned  with  justice, 
aimed  their  blows  at  despotism;  the  American  fanaticism,  direc 
ted  by  a  reckless  dishonesty,  struck  at  republican  government, 
and  destroyed  its  Constitution.  The  French  repudiated  the  as 
signats,  with  the  crimes  which  brought  them  into  being;  the 
Americans  are  building  the  funding  system  upon  a  depreciated 
currency,  to  fasten  slavery  upon  the  industry  of  the  country,  to 
transmit  to  our  children  that  which  was  before  but  a  temporary 
evil,  to  be  avoided  and  eschewed. 

Debt  is  the  measure  of  our  personal  liberty.     Only  the  Rus- 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  429 

slan  aristocracy  could  enforce  the  Russian  debt.  It  requires  the 
whole  force  of  the  monarchy,  aristocracy,  and  monopoly  of  Great 
Britain,  who  own  the  labor  and  production  of  the  country  in 
advance  of  their  creation,  to  make  the  British  debt  available  for 
oppression.  In  America,  the  question  is  exceedingly  simple, 
the  repudiation  of  this  debt,  or  the  abandonment  of  the  republi 
can  system  of  government. 

The  military  despotism  in  the  South,  is  the  first  step  in  ad 
vancing  crime  to  overthrow  liberty:  —  a  necessary  plan  to  carry 
out  the  funding  system,  to  collect  such  a  debt,  and  prepare  the 
people  of  the  North  to  submit  to  military  espionage  and  force 
as  the  accompaniment  of  their  revenue  system. 

The  Congress  has  reduced  the  American  people  to  a  choice 
among  three  methods  of  extrication  : 

The  first,  the  British  funding  system  fastened  upon  us. 

The  second,  the  French  paper  system  of  paying  with  green 
backs,  and  the  hypothecation  of  the  greenbacks,  for  the  public 
lands,  so  as  to  leave  no  public  debt. 

The  third  is  outright  repudiation.  The  first  must  be  destroy 
ed  at  all  hazards.  The  second  may  be  done  or  pave  the  way  for 
the  third.  The  people  must  be  free  from  the  task-masters  of 
capital. 


430  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 


BOOK 


CEIMES  OF  TITE  TARIFF. 


CHAPTER  I. 

UNHEALTHY  CONDITION  OF  THE  PUBLIC  MIND  IN  REGARD  TO  PUBLIC 
ASSISTANCE. 

THE  UNHEALTHY  CONDITION  OF  THE  PUBLIC  MIND,  AND 
THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  COUNTRY,  IS  THE  HARBINGER  OF  GEN 
ERAL  BANKRUPTCY. 

The  unsettled,  discontented,  and  feverish  state  of  the  public 
mind,  is  a  clear  index  of  our  approaching  ruin. 

The  people  of  the  country  are  complaining,  pleading,  and 
regretting,  in  singular  confusion.  In  appeals  to  Congress  for 
redress,  assistance,  and  prohibition,  as  the  case  may  be,  agricul 
ture,  commerce,  and  manufactures,  send  up  their  committees  to 
besiege  Congress,  call  upon  the  President,  and  ask  relief  at  the 
hands  of  the  Government. 

Soldiers  are  praying  for  more  bounty,  widows  ask  an  increase 
of  pension,  free  negroes  demand  more  rations,  ministers  are 
seeking  new  chaplaincies,  members  of  Congress  increase  their 
own  salaries,  and  connive  at  the  creation  of  large  standing 
armies,  to  enlarge  the  extent  and  diversity  of  their  patronage. 
These  new  requirements  of  the  functions  of  government,  make 
new  demands  upon  the  public  treasury.  Heavier  taxation,  and 
more  extensive  resources,  must  be  exhausted,  to  meet  the  increas 
ing  depletion. 

But  you  have  scarcely  caught  a  passing  glimpse  of  these  mul 
titudes,  seeking  relief  from  the  treasury,  these  mendicants  upon 
government  folly,  and  crazy,  popular  liberality,  until  your  atten 
tion  is  attracted  to  other  committees,  deputed  from  every  other 
conceivable  interest,  demanding  exemption  from  taxation  of 


CRIMES  OP  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  431 

every  kind.  What  is  scarcely  less  remarkable  than  incongru 
ous,  these  t\vo  classes  are  met  and  jostled,  by  a  third,  and  quite 
as  numerous  a  class,  demanding  protection  for  everything  they 
create  or  do.  All  of  these  gentlemen  maintain  their  claims,  by 
arguments  both  new  and  old,  extreme  and  absurd,  conclusive  and 
ad  captandum,  the  very  challenge  of  which,  would  invite  violence 
from  their  hands. 

This  motley  mob  of  instructors  in  political  economy,  are  more 
than  outdone  by  the  philosophers  who  propose  the  introduction 
of  new  systems  of  moral  and  political  truth  for  the  govern 
ment  of  the  world. 

The  humble  minister  of  the  meek  and  lowly  Son  of  Man,  ar 
rayed  in  the  latest  and  most  fashionable  style  of  the  elite,  with 
diamond  rings,  and  French  broadcloth  coat,  and  silk  velvet  vest, 
imperial  and  moustache  highly  perfumed  with  musk,  comes  to 
exemplify  his  peaceful  mission,  by  a  demand,  in  the  name  of 
Heaven,  of  a  revival  of  war,  as  the  only  means  of  propitiating 
the  good  will,  and  securing  the  favor,  of  the  Prince  of  Peace ; 
and  persistently  demand  violence  as  the  only  efficient  means  of 
showing  the  merciful  character  of  their  divine  mission.  Their 
cry  for  blood  is  to  exemplify  their  devotion  to  the  great  Master 
who  never  resented  an  injury ;  and  their  vengeful  addresses  are 
given  in  proof  of  their  forgiving  spirit. 

The  New  England  Puritan,  with  his  whining  cant  and  nasal 
twang,  next  approaches  upon  his  philanthropic  mission  of  levy 
ing  an  impost  duty,  of  an  hundred  per  cent,  upon  the  original 
cost  of  the  cloth  of  the  poor  man's  wardrobe.  He  comes  in 
this  political  tableaux,  as  the  friend  of  our  common  race,  and 
piteously  pleads  for  the  amelioration  of  the  wrongs  of  mankind, 
which,  he  is  religiously  persuaded,  will  be  best  subserved  by 
paying  three  prices,  and  a  reasonable  profit,  for  Ms  goods  and 
wares. 

Next  approaches  the  friend  of  universal  suffrage,  r/ho  proposes 
to  extend  the  rights  of  self-government,  by  disfranchising  all  of 
the  civilized  elements  of  society,  and  enfranchising  barbarians, 
as  the  most  ready  means  of  paying  the  public  debt,  in  this  most 
striking,  common-sense  way ;  by  levying  taxes,  without  the  con 
sent  of  the  people  who  shall  pay  them,  and  depriving  the  owners 
of  property  of  the  power  of  resisting  their  collection. 


432  CRIMES  OF  THE   CTVTL 

This  insanity  which  pervades  society,  in  regard  to  the  public 
debt,  is  precisely  that  which  seizes  every  insolvent  debtor.  Ambi 
tious  to  be  rich,  and  careful  to  conceal  his  misfortune,  he  resorts 
to  every  possible  scheme,  and  embraces  every  subterfuge  which 
offers  relief;  but  with  that  fatuity  which  involved  him,  he  will 
pursue  his  shadows  until  they  disappear  in  the  setting  sun  of  his 
gloomy  life.  Governments  are  multitudes  of  men  who  have 
combined  their  powers,  and  wealth,  and  folly,  and  insanity, — dif 
ferent  from  individuals  only  in  their  magnitude. 

The  great  financial  calamity  of  the  United  States  is,  that  we 
are  in  debt,  without  adequate  means  of  payment.  Every  other 
obstacle,  in  the  way  of  our  progress,  power,  and  glory,  is  magni 
fied  by  this  cardinal  evil. 

Every  subterfuge  of  speculation,  every  refuge  of  lies,  has  been 
exhausted  to  make  our  poverty  seem  wealth,  and  our  blanched 
cheek  of  shame  wear  the  face  of  honor.  The  last  miserable  shift  of 
these  commercial  simpletons,  is  to  pay  the  debt  by  a  constitutional 
amendment,  embracing  the  views  of  the  gentlemen  above  alluded 
to ;  then  to  secure  the  payment,  more  completely,  by  passing  laws, 
from  time  to  time,  that  the  public  debt  never  shall  be  repudiated. 

There  is  nothing  more  ridiculous  than  an  attempt  to  enact 
laws  which  may  never  be  repealed.  Such  attempts  always  cast 
a  just  suspicion  upon  the  law  itself,  which  claims  immunity  from 
examination.  Such  laws  inevitably  lead  to  oppression,  which 
will  seek  freedom  in  revolution.  A  government  which  enforces 
only  such  laws  as  may  serve  the  purpose  of  tyrants,  and  obliviates 
such  as  are  necessary  to  preserve  liberty,  is  unspeakeably  worse 
than  simple  arbitrary  power,  and  will  command  no  more  respect 
than  that  which  is  extorted  by  force.  Of  this  character,  are  all 
laws  which  repudiate  one  class  of  debts  outright,  and  make  ob 
ligatory  forever  another  class,  based  upon  the  same  general 
principles,  when  the  justice  and  obligation  of  each  arc  in  the 
nature  of  things  subject  to  the  judgment  of  each  successive  gen 
eration. 

Forever,  at  the  most  moderate  calculation,  is  a  long  time  hence, 
and  must  see  many  changes  in  its  checquered  course.  Wise  men 
are  content  to  legislate  for  to-day,  whilst  the  prudent  as  wisely 
care  for  the  morrow.  God  alone  is  the  lawgiver  of  eternity.. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  433 


THE  UNCERTAIN  CHARACTER  OF  THIS  DEBT. 

This  great  debt  is  a  purely  human  affair,  not  invested  with  a 
single  attribute  of  Divinity,  and  must  be  subjected  to  all  of  the 
examinations,  criticisms,  disputations,  and  legal  ordeals  pe 
culiar  to  all  other  mere  indebtedness,  and  it  must  not  be  for 
gotten  that  it  is  not  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  world,  that  man 
kind  grow  impatient  for  opportunities  to  pay  public  debts. 
Senator  Sumner  once  declared  that  his  "  people  were  clamoring 
for  heavier  taxation,"  and  were  indignant  because  they  were  not 
permitted  to  contribute  more  freely  of  their  money  to  the  sup 
port  of  the  Government.  I  confess  frankly  that  I  never  knew 
just  such  a  case. 

The  railroad  system  of  the  country  has  given  a  wide  scope  to 
the  passion  for  indebtedness,  peculiar  to  the  American  people, 
and  illustrates  their  anxieties  to  meet  claims  incurred  by  stock- 
gambling.  The  multiplicity  of  claims  and  law-suits  consequent, 
are  a  striking  commentary  upon  the  desire  of  the  people  to  pay 
public  debts  without  cavil.  There  is  scarcely  an  instance  of 
railroad  obligations  having  been  met  without  contest  and  resist 
ance.  The  simple  history  of  these  contests  makes  a  large  acqui 
sition  to  the  legal  literature  of  the  country,  and  nothing  but  the 
living,  active  power,  and  permeating  identity,  of  railroads  with 
the  necessary  business  of  the  country,  enables  them  to  secure  the 
recognition  of  debts  fairly  contracted  with  communities  and 
States.  The  voluntary  subscriptions  to  great  public  enterprises 
are  rarely  realized  to  the  amount  of  fifty  per  cent. 

The  debt  of  the  United  States,  whether  in  bonds  as  the  foun 
dation  of  a  hateful  aristocracy,  or  in  banks,  the  engine  of  per 
petual  illegitimate  speculation,  will  ultimately  be  contested  before 
the  highest  tribunals  known  to  the  contests  of  time — the  frail, 
fickle,  treacherous  court  of  popular  will  —  yet  only  less  potent 
than  the  decrees  of  the  HIGH  CHANCERY  ABOVE. 

When  the  issues  in  the  debt  are  fully  made  out,  every  step  of 
the  dangerous  road  through  which  we  have  passed,  will  be  ex 
amined  with  a  care  which  shall  make  men  dizzy  in  contempla 
tion  of  the  chasms  beneath,  and  the  fearful,  crumbling  precipices 
28 


434  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

along  the  tottering  edges  of  which  a  drunken  nation  has  stag 
gered,  and  reeled,  singing  her  bacchanalian  songs,  leaving  sepul 
chres  of  the  immortal  dead,  churches  of  the  living  God,  gardens, 
cities,  and  plantations,  the  discoveries  of  science,  the  works  of 
art,  and  the  monuments  of  religion,  in  ashes,  as  the  only  land 
marks  by  which  their  hateful  march  can  be  retraced.  This  is 
all  that  will  remain  of  a  cultivated  refinement  and  peerless  civil 
ization. 

The  constitutionality  of  the  purposes  for  which  appropriations 
were  made,  and  the  consequent  debts  contracted,  will  be 
carefully  examined,  if  not  before,  will,  after  the  furious  fires  of 
passion  have  died  out,  and  the  bitterness  of  strife  has  been  dissi 
pated  in  the  changes  of  time. 

The  contest  will  involve  everything  at  every  step  of  time.  A 
national  debt,  standing  on  the  rails  of  the  track  of  the  advancing 
destiny  of  a  great  country,  —  a  millstone  hanging  around  the 
neck  of  labor, —  an  impassable  gulf,  with  its  boiling  maelstrom 
lying  between  and  separating  the  fortunes  of  the  rich  from  the 
daily  wants  of  the  poor,  —  a  treasure  from  which  bribery  draws 
her  legislative  poison,  and  corrupts  the  fountains  of  justice. 

This  debt  is  a  stream  of  power,  which  accumulates  as  it  sweeps 
swiftly  on,  increasing  in  volume,  to  the  vast  sea  of  the  future. 

This  financial  despotism  on  the  one  side  has  arrayed  its  pla 
toons,  companies,  battalions,  regiments  and  grand  army  of  asses 
sors,  collectors,  and  spies,  to  possess  the  property  and  discover 
the  liberty  of  the  people.  Against  them,  on  the  other  side,  are 
the  people,  who  array  their  forces. 

The  eighteen  hundred  thousand  citizens  who  refused  to  vote 
for  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  A.  D.  1864. 

The  whole  Southern  people  who  resisted  his  usurpation  with 
arms. 

The  millions  of  poor  people  who  have  been  ruined  by  the  war. 

The  soldiers,  and  their  ruined  families,  who  have  nothing  left 
of  their  meagre  savings,  and  grow  restive  in  contemplation  of 
the  fortunes  of  contractors,  and  speculators,  coined  from  the 
blood  of  their  fallen  comrades. 

The  landholder,  and  every  man  who  contributes  to  the  sup 
port  of  the  special,  privileged,  untaxed,  and  untitled  bonded 
aristocracy.  These  are  the  parties  to  the  great  contest. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 


435 


When  the  issue  is  fairly  made  up,  the  trial  will  be  short,  speedy, 
and  decisive.  In  this  terrible  conflict,  the  empty  clamor  of  "  loyal 
ty/7  the  clap-trap  of  "  national  life,"  will  pass  away  with  their 
concomitant  slang  phrases.  Of  all  these  evanescent  things,  the 
people  will  grow  weary,  and  time  will  administer  her  own  reme 
dy.  Debts  are  not  the  more  enduring,  because  the  more  costly 
luxuries  of  party  organization. 

In  this  struggle  for  liberty,  there  will  be  a  thorough  canvass ; 
the  power  of  the  legislation  which  proposes  to  fasten  the  yoke 
upon  the  necks  of  an  unwilling  people  as  an  appendage,  if  not 
an  ornament,  to  their  existence. 


436  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PREVAILING  IGNORANCE  OF  THE  NATURE  OF  TARIFFS. 

EXOEBITAKT  duties  levied  upon  importations  of  every  kind, 
is  the  natural  result  of  a  debt  which  involves  the  country  in 
bankruptcy.  This  is  not  an  accident  merely  of  the  indebtedness, 
but  was  clearly  foreseen,  and  as  certainly  intended,  by  the  pro 
jectors  of  the  present  revolution,  as  one  of  its  immediate  and 
necessary  results. 

The  necessity  for  a  protective  system  of  duties  was,  in  itself, 
worth  the  price  of  a  million  of  lives  to  those  who  were  profit 
ably  bartering  in  human  blood,  and  was  cheaply  purchased  by 
the  desolation  of  half  a  continent,  to  those  who  were  stealing 
what  had  escaped  the  general  conflagration. 

One  class  of  people  claim  the  right  of  living  by  their  wits. 
This  they  attempted,  not  in  the  manly  struggle  of  mind  with 
mind,  in  the  learned  professions,  in  the  invention  of  new  and 
useful  implements  of  labor,  in  the  discoveries  of  new  truths  of 
nature,  new  principles  in  science,  or  new  doctrines  in  philoso 
phy  ;  but  the  protection  of  their  particular  business  in  which 
government  is  laid  under  requisition  for  their  support.  The 
extent  of  the  vassalage  of  the  laboring  classes  of  the  United 
States  to  vicious  legislation,  exceeds  anything  known  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  commerce  and  industry  of  nations.  The  most  de 
plorable  feature  of  this  system  of  oppression  is,  that  those  who 
suffer  under  it  seem  unconscious  of  the  weight  of  the  burdens 
imposed,  and  are  continually  attributing  the  evil  to  other  inade 
quate  causes. 

They  are  sinking  under  the  load,  yet  scarcely  discern  the  un- 
pitying  hand  that  presses  harder  and  harder  each  succeeding 
year,  adding  new  tasks  of  labor  to  meet  the  old  demands  of 
life,  and  each  year  falling  shorter  than  the  year  preceding,  of  its 
comforts. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  437 

The  unseen  tyrant  has  adroitly  placed  some  other  image  be 
tween  himself  and  his  victim,  to  receive  the  blows  in  revenge  for 
the  injuries  inflicted. 

The  laborer  has  felt  the  pinchings  of  want,  the  gnawings  of 
hunger,  and  the  piercing  winds  against  which  he  had  no  ade 
quate  protection.  He  cast  his  eye  in  every  direction,  but  could 
discern  no  sufficient  cause  for  the  destitution,  and  want,  that  met 
him  at  his  door-sill  when  he  returned  half  famished  from  his 
daily  labor,  without  being  able  to  economize  for  the  evening  of 
life  or  those  days  of  sorrow,  when  ill  health  or  accident,  would 
commence  to  devour  the  penny  saved  to  alleviate  the  sufferings 
of  old  age.  Just  at  this  moment  the  cunning  capitalist  would 
point  him  to  the  people  of  the  Southern  States,  and  denounce 
their  prosperity  as  the  secret  cause  of  the  poverty  of  the  North 
ern  laborer. 

The  laborer  who  overlooked  his  plunderer  in  the  person  who 
addressed  him,  commenced  a  crusade  against  the  people  of  the 
South  as  his  worst  enemy,  who  stood  between  him  and  his  wont 
ed  happiness.  The  long  sanguinary  civil  war  ensued,  and  with 
its  termination  came  the  destruction  of  our  market;  the  annihil 
ation  of  our  foreign  exchange,  and  in  their  stead  arose  our  great 
competitor  in  the  market  of  the  world. 

Here  is  the  real  source  of  general  poverty  which  demands  re 
lief. 

The  measure  of  the  financial  oppression  of  any  people,  is  the 
taxes  imposed  upon  their  property,  and  drawbacks  upon  their 
industry.  It  is  the  chief  aim  of  intriguers,  in  the  affairs  of 
government  and  finances,  to  keep  the  taxation  of  the  people  out 
of  view. 

The  discovery  was  made  at  an  early  period  of  civilization, 
that  oppressive  taxation  was  the  never  failing  source  of  revolu 
tion.  It  was  the  greatest  improvement  in  the  art  of  govern 
ment,  to  learn  how  to  tax  men  without  their  knowledge,  and  he 
was  the  ablest  statesman  who  could  extract  most  from  the  pro 
ducing  classes  without  complaint,  and  collect  the  money  before 
it  entered  the  purse  of  the  tax-payer.  This  occult  science  was 
called  "  Duties." 

The  very  general  ignorance  of  the  people,  of  the  nature,  oppres- 


438  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAE. 

sion,  and  extent  of  the  system  of  duties  in  the  United  States, 
should  not  excite  surprise,  when  it  is  known  that  this  want  of 
knowledge  pervades  the  ruling  elements  of  the  country,  and  is 
common  among  her  leading  statesmen.  President  Lincoln,  in 
the  route  from  his  home  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  to  Washington 
city,  delivered,  in  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania,  the  great  Western 
emporium  of  manufactures,  the  following  vague,  incoherent,  and 
extraordinary  speech  about  this  question,  which  had  involved 
the  controversies  of  the  Senate  from  the  foundation  of  the  gov 
ernment,  and  touching  the  sources  of  nearly  all  of  the  revenue 
which  had  supported  its  administration  and  paid  its  public  debt. 
HEAR  HIM  :  — "It  is  often  said  that  the  specialty  of  Pennsylva 
nia  assuming  that  direct  taxation  is  not  to  be  adopted,  the  tariff 
question  must  be  as  durable  as  the  government  itself. 

It  is  a  question  of  national  housekeeping.  It  is  to  the  gov 
ernment  what  replenishing  the  meal-tub  is  to  the  family  —  ever 
varying  circumstances  will  require  frequent  modifications  as  to 
amount  needed  and  sources  of  supply :  so  far,  then,  there  is  little 
difference  of  opinion  among  the  people.  It  is  as  to  whether,  and 
how  far  duties  on  imports  shall  be  adjusted  to  favor  home  pro 
ductions.  In  the  home  market  the  controversy  begins. 

One  party  insists  that  such  adjustment  oppresses  one  class  for 
the  advantage  of  another;  while  the  other  party  argues  that  with 
its  incidents  and  in  the  long  run,  all  classes  are  benefited.  In 
the  Chicago  platform  there  is  a  plank  upon  this  subject,  which 
should  be  a  general  law  to  the  incoming  administration.  We 
should  do  neither  more  nor  less,  than  we  gave  the  people  reason 
to  believe  we  would,  when  they  gave  us  their  votes. 

The  plank  is  as  I  now  read : 

Resolved,  That  while  providing  revenue  for  the  support  of  the 
general  government,  by  duties  upon  imports,  sound  policy  re 
quires  such  an  adjustment  of  these  imposts  as  to  encourage  the 
development  of  the  industrial  interests  of  the  whole  country ; 
and  we  commend  that  policy  of  national  exchanges,  which  se 
cures  to  the  working  men  liberal  wages,  to  agriculture  remune 
rative  prices,  to  mechanics  and  manufacturers  an  adequate  re 
ward  for  their  skill,  labor,  and  enterprize,  and  to  the  nation,  com 
mercial  prosperity  and  independence. 

As  with  all  general  propositions,  there  will  be  shades  of  dif- 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAH.  439 

ference  in  construing  this.  I  have  by  no  means  a  thoroughly 
matured  j  udgrnent  upon  this  subject,  especially  as  to  details,  some 
ideas  are  all." 

The  tariff,  under  the  pretext  of  protecting  manufactures,  has 
been  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  rich  to  oppress  the  poor. 
It  is  a  decree  passed  to  limit  the  amount  and  quality  of  the  food 
and  raiment  of  the  consumer,  for  the  benefit  of  the  producer. 
The  extent  and  atrocity  of  our  taxation  defies  comment.  It  has 
placed  over  us  an  army  of  spies,  detectives,  contractors,  general 
and  subordinate  officers,  who  meet  us  at  every  corner  of  the 
streets  and  in  every  avenue  of  business. 

Placing  a  money-grabber  between  the  mouths  of  the  poor  and 
the  butcher-shop,  a  stamp  between  the  medicine  and  your  dying 
child,  a  tariff  between  your  shivering  body  and  the  clothing-store, 
between  the  muslin  shroud  and  the  corpse  of  your  wife. 

WHAT  is  A  DUTY  ?  A  protective  duty  upon  importations,  is 
a  tax  levied  upon  the  consumer  and  paid  to  the  producer,  to  main 
tain  manufactures,  under  the  pretext  that  manufacturing  is  not 
able  to  sustain  itself.  It  is  more;  it  is  a  restriction  laid  upon 
commerce,  which  is  intended  to  destroy  the  communication  be 
tween  powers  for  the  exchange  of  such  articles  as  may  be  manu 
factured  in  their  respective  nations. 

WHAT  is  COMMERCE?  Commerce  is  not  only  asMcCulluch 
defines  it,  "  coeval  with  the  first  dawn  of  civilization/'  but  it  is 
the  prime  civilizer  of  the  world  and  the  great  medium  through 
which  the  necessaries,  comforts,  and  luxuries  of  life,  are  extended 
to  the  whole  family  of  man,  by  reciprocal  exchange  with  those 
who,  having  one  or  more  articles  in  greater  quantities  than  they 
can  consume,  exchange  them  with  other  persons,  who,  in  like 
quantities,  have  other  and  different  commodities.  It  is  in  these 
mutual  exchanges,  that  the  business  of  the  world  is  created  and 
enlarged ;  and  by  commerce,  that  multifarious  wealth  is  found 
in  modern  times,  so  generally  and  equally  distributed  among 
civilized  nations. 

Commerce  is  a  source  of  wealth,  which  adds  that  which  is  im 
ported  to  the  original  and  created  wealth  of  the  country,  which 
is  thereby  the  richer  by  the  importation ;  and  exports  those  sur 
plus  commodities,  which  the  people  can  dispense  with  as  well, 


440  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

and  thus,  whilst  increasing  the  variety  and  extent  of  the  com 
forts  and  luxuries  of  a  nation,  dispenses  in  return  to  other  nations 
an  equivalent  for  their  productions,  and  a  variety  of  the  blessings, 
which  God  has  kindly  intended  for  all.  That  people  are  placed 
within  the  reach  of  the  greatest  variety  of  the  products  of  the 
earth,  who  have  the  most  perfect  system  of  commerce. 

And  he  is  an  enemy  of  civilization  who  obstructs  commerce 
and  restricts  trade. 

So  tenaciously  do  men  cling  to  their  selfish  barbarism,  that  they 
have  yielded  to  the  freedom  of  trade  with  as  much  reluctance  as 
tyrants  have  conceded  the  rights  of  representation,  the  writ  of 
right,  or  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  over  the  military  power. 


CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  441 


CHAPTER  III. 

DEVICES  TO  OBSTRUCT  TRADE. 

HUMAN  ingenuity  has  never  been  more  severely  taxed  than  in 
the  effort  to  find  out  some  new  method  of  restricting  trade,  for 
the  benefit  of  those  already  engaged  in  particular  pursuits. 

These  restrictions  may  be  curiously  summed  up  as  a  system  in 
itself,  which  has  been  in  operation  to  restrain  competition,  lest 
freedom  might  endanger  the  interests  of  monopoly. 

I.  The  exclusive  privileges  of  corporations,  which  overshadow 
the  business  of  the  towns  and  villages,  roots  out  the  individual 
efforts  of  the  mechanic,  who  endeavors  to  carry  on  his  trade  sin 
gle-handed.  In  Great  Britain  this  was  done. 

1.  By  restricting  the  number  of  apprentices  to  an  exceedingly 
small  proportion  of  those  who  might  profitably  be  engaged  in 
the  business. 

2.  By  extending  the  term  of  service  of  apprenticeship,  to  a 
length  which  forbids  entrance  by  those  who  would  desire  to  learn 
such  trades,  or  engage  in  such  business.     Working  the  double 
hardship  of  preventing  young  men  from  engaging  in  businesses  for 
which  nature  had  given  them  both  taste  and  capacities,  and  the 
people  from  having  the  advantage  of  healthy  competition. 

The  number  of  years  required,  were  such  as  forced  the  appren 
tice  to  forego  the  advantages  of  a  liberal  education  in  early  life, 
or  employ  his  maturer  years,  almost  the  length  of  time  necessary 
to  earn  a  competency  at  any  of  the  pursuits  of  the  artizan,  which 
was  untrammeled  by  conditions;  whilst  a  master  who  kept* 
more  than  a  given  number  of  apprentices,  was  laid  under  penal 
ties  as  great  as  those  imposed  upon  men  for  the  commission  of 
crime  of  the  lower  grade,  with  which  it  is  classed,  by  laws 
still  in  force,  in  enlightened  countries  of  Europe. 

3.  The  restriction  was  so  framed,  that  neither  the  customer 


442  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

could  choose  his  workman,  nor  the  workman  follow  his  occupa 
tion,  lest  some  incorporated  monopoly  should  lose  the  profits  se 
cured  to  it. 

All  of  this  was  entirely  unknown  to  the  ancients,  who  had  no 
apprentices.  It  is  the  invention  of  monopoly,  made  to  perpetuate 
itself  by  law. 

This,  too,  is  in  violation  of  the  laws  of  industry,  which  require 
due  stimulants,  and  secures  no  better  workmanship,  which  de 
pends  upon  the  skill  of  the  master  of  the  shop,  who  is  stimulated 
to  perfection  and  integrity  of  his  work,  by  the  continuation  of  his 
business,  and  the  customers  who  support  it. 

4.  The  unwillingness  to  impart  the  knowledge  and  advantages 
of  trade,  is  another  mode  resorted  to,  and  somewhat  modified  by 
the  laws  granting  letters  patent  for  a  limited  term  of  years, 
which  generally  remunerates  the  inventor  in  a  fair  proportion, 
according  to  the  appreciated  value  of  his  inventive  genius,  and 
may  scarcely  be  regarded  as  an  obstruction  to  trade ;  whilst  the 
others  enumerated,  not  only  obstruct  the  business  itself,  but  also 
hinder  its  free  circulation,  and  invade  the  law  of  supply  and  de 
mand,  and  stand  in  the  way  of  the  progressive  development  of  a 
true  and  liberal  civilization. 

In  1601,  Queen  Elizabeth  had  granted  letters  patent,  with 
exclusive  privileges,  to  some  private  persons,  for  the  sale  of  cer 
tain  commodities. 

The  Queen  learned,  through  the  Commons,  that  these  monop 
olies  were  exercised  as  so  many  breaches  of  the  people's  privi 
leges,  and  annulled  them,  for  the  most  part,  leaving  the  remainder 
to  the  courts ;  whereupon  the  Commons  deputed  eighty  of  their 
number  to  wait  upon  her  with  their  thanks,  whereupon  she  made 
the  following  speech : 

"  I  owe  you  hearty  thanks  and  commendations  for  your  singular 
good  will  towards  me,  not  only  in  your  hearts  and  thoughts, 
but  which  you  have  openly  expressed  and  declared,  whereby  you 
have  recalled  me  from  an  error  proceeding  from  my  ignorance, 
not  my  will.  These  things  had,  undeservedly,  turned  to  my 
disgrace  (to  whom  nothing  is  more  dear  than  the  safety  and  love 
of  my  people),  had  not  such  harpies  and  horse-leeches  as  these, 
been  made  known  and  discovered  to  me,  by  you.  I  had  rather 
my  heart  and  hand  should  perish,  than  that  either  my  heart  or 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.       •  443 

hand  should  allow  such  privileges,  to  monopolists,  as  may  be 
prejudicial  to  my  people.  The  splendor  of  Eegal  Majesty  hath 
not  so  blinded  mine  eyes,  that  licentious  power  should  prevail  with 
me  more  than  justice.  The  glory  of  the  name  of  a  king  may 
deceive  princes,  as  gilded  pills  may  deceive  a  rich  patient,  but  I  am 
none  of  those  princes :  for  I  know  that  the  commonwealth  is  to  be 
governed  for  the  good  and  advantage  of  those  that  are  committed  to 
me,  not  of  myself  to  whom  it  is  entrusted,  and  that  an  account  is, 
one  day,  to  be  given  betore  another  judgment-seat.  I  think  myself 
most  happy  that,  by  God's  assistance,  I  have  hitherto  so  prosper 
ously  governed  the  commonwealth,  in  all  respects,  and  that  I  have 
had  such  subjects  as,  for  their  good,  I  would  willingly  leave 
both  kingdom,  and  life,  also.  I  beseech  you  that,  whatever  mis 
demeanors  and  miscarriages  others  are  guilty  of,  by  their  false 
suggestions,  may  not  be  imputed  to  me.  Let  the  testimony  of  a 
clear  conscience,  entirely,  in  all  respects,  excuse  me.  You  are  not 
ignorant  that  princes'  servants  are  oftentimes  too  much  set  upon 
their  own  private  advantages,  that  the  truth  is  frequently  con 
cealed  from  princes,  and  they  cannot  themselves  look  narrowly  in 
all  things,  upon  whose  shoulders  lieth  continually  the  heavy 
weight  of  the  greatest  and  most  important  affairs." 

5th.  The  laws  which  prevented  workmen  from  combining  to 
exact  greater  wages  under  heavy  penalties,  yet  did  not  prevent 
the  masters  and  corporation  from  combining  to  exact  more  work 
and  less  compensation.  Such  was  the  character  of  the  8th  stat 
ute  of  George  III. 

6th.  The  regulation  of  prices  by  law  in  favor  of  the  manu 
facturer.  Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  when  a  corporation 
receives  its  franchises  and  exclusive  privileges  from  government, 
that  the  government  not  only  has  the  right,  but  it  is  their 
bounden  duty  to  restrain  the  powers  which  they  have  granted, 
that  the  public  may  not  be  oppressed  by  a  franchise  granted  by 
itself. 

So  various  and  absurd  have  been  the  subterfuges  to  which 
monopolists,  hard  pressed,  have  resorted  to  perpetuate  their 
power  and  cover  up  their  frauds,  that  the  barest  recital  would 
fill  many  volumes.  It  is  with  the  principal  and  most  enormous 
of  these  which  I  have  now  to  deal,  because  it  is  the  naked  est  apology 
made  by  the  rich  to  invoke  legislative  aid  to  oppress  the  poor. 
It  is  the  hollowest  appeal  for  a  franchise  of  the  powerful,  to 


444  *       CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAB. 

crush  out  the  weak ;  the  right  of  the  well-dressed  to  pluck  the 
tattered  garments  from  the  poorly  clad;  the  right  of  the  laud- 
lord  to  grind  the  tenant;  the  privilege  of  the  coal  dealer  to 
freeze  the  shivering  body  of  the  fireless. 

"  Tariff  in  its  most  comprehensive  sense  is  a  table  alphabeti 
cally  arranged,  specifying  the  various  duties,  drawbacks,  bounties, 
&c.,  charged  and  allowed  on  the  importation  and  exportation  of 
articles  of  foreign  and  domestic  produce." 

THE    ODIOUS    OBSTRUCTION   TO    AMERICAN    COMMERCE    IS   THE 
DUTY  UPON  FOREIGN  IMPORTS. 

There  is  in  the  weakness  of  human  nature  an  inherent  love  of 
self-deception,  which  bears  us  unconsciously  away  upon  the 
swelling  tide  of  sure  destruction,  when,  under  the  delusion  that 
we  are  floating  upon  the  unbroken  waves  of  prosperity  to  cer 
tain  bliss.  This  hallucination  approaches  a  frenzy  when  it 
seizes  men  laboring  under  the  excitements  peculiar  to  religion  or 
politics,  wThen  led  by  artful  and  ambitious  men,  under  the  trans 
parent  guise  of  patriotism  or  piety,  as  the  vilest  imposters  find 
the  most  ready  access  to  the  hearts  of  honest  men  by  extrava 
gant  professions  of  devotion  to  their  country  and  God. 

This  very  delusion  has,  strangely  enough,  taken  possession  of 
Americans  in  the  consideration  of  every  thing  which  pertains  to 
their  government,  and  beclouded  their  understanding  upon  every 
subject  of  public  economy.  Men  who  complain  of  taxes  which 
they  fully  comprehend,  are  fascinated  and  delighted  with  the 
idea  of  supporting  the  government  by  tariffs  ten-fold  more  ex 
pensive  and  a  thousand  times  more  odious,  which  take  their 
property  without  their  knowledge. 


CMMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAS.  445 


CHAPTER  IV. 

No  ONE  NATION  CAN  PRODUCE  EVERYTHING, 

No  ONE  NATION  CAN  PRODUCE  EVERYTHING  WHICH  IT  CON 
SUMES,  WITHOUT  DENYING  TO  ITS  POPULATION  MUCH  THAT 
THE  ARTS  OF  CIVILIZATION  COULD  SUPPLY  THEM  WITH,  IN 
EXCHANGE  FOR  THE  SURPLUS  WHICH  THEY  PRODUCE  AT 
HOME. 

IN  support  of  this  view  I  again  call  in  the  American  philoso 
pher,  who  says,  "  Several  of  the  princes  of  Europe  have,  of  late, 
from  an  opinion  of  advantage  to  arise  by  producing  all  com 
modities  and  manufactures  within  their  own  dominion,  so  as  to 
diminish  or  render  useless  their  importations,  endeavor  to  entice 
workmen  from  other  countries  by  high  salaries,  privileges,  &c., 
pretending  to  be  skilled  in  various  great  manufactures. 

Imagining  that  America  must  be  in  want  of  them,  and  the 
Congress  would  probably  be  disposed  to  imitate  the  princes 
above  mentioned,  have  proposed  to  go  over  on  condition  of  hav 
ing  their  passage  paid,  lands  given,  salaries  appointed,  exclusive 
privileges  for  terms  of  years.  Such  persons,  on  reading  the  Ar 
ticles  of  Confederation,  will  find  that  Congress  has  no  power 
committed  to  them,  nor  money  put  into  their  hands,  for  such 
purposes,  and  that  if  any  encouragement  be  given,  it  must  be  by 
the  government  of  some  separate  State.  This,  however,  has 
been  rarely  done  in  America,  and  when  it  has  been  done,  it  has 
rarely  succeeded  so  as  to  establish  a  manufacture,  which  the 
country  was  not  so  ripe  for,  as  to  encourage  private  persons  to 
set  it  up,  labor  being  generally  too  dear  there,  and  hands  diffi 
cult  to  be  kept  together,  every  one  desiring  to  be  master,  and  the 
cheapness  of  the  land  inclining  many  to  leave  trade  for  agricul 
ture.  Some,  indeed,  have  met  with  success,  and  are  carried  on 
to  advantage,  but  they  are  such  as  require  only  a  few  hands,  or 
wherein  great  part  of  the  work  is  performed  by  machines. 


446  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

Goods  that  are  bulky,  and  of  so  small  value  as  not  to  well  bear 
the  expense  of  freight,  may  often  be  made  cheaper  in  the  country 
than  they  can  be  imported,  and  the  manufacture  of  such  goods 
will  be  profitable  whenever  there  is  sufficient  demand.  The 
farmers  of  America  produce,  indeed,  a  great  deal  of  wool  and 
flax,  and  none  is  exported ;  it  is  all  worked  up ;  but  it  is  in  the 
way  of  domestic  manufacture.  The  buying  up  of  quantities  of 
wool  and  flax,  with  the  design  to  employ  spinners,  weavers,  etc., 
and  from  great  establishments  producing  quantities  of  linen  and 
woolen  goods  for  sale,  has  been  several  times  attempted  in  differ 
ent  provinces,  but  those  projects  have  generally  failed,  goods  of 
equal  value  being  imported  cheaper ;  and  when  the  government 
has  been  solicited  to  support  such  schemes  by  encouragement  in 
money,  or  by  imposing  duties  on  importations  of  such  goods, 
it  has  been  generally  refused,  upon  this  principle,  that  if  the 
country  is  ripe  for  manufacture,  it  may  be  carried  on  by  private 
persons  to  advantage ;  and  if  not,  its  great  establishments  of 
manufacture  require  great  numbers  of  poor  to  do  the  work,  for 
small  wages.  Those  poor  are  found  in  Europe,  but  will  not  be 
found  in  America,  till  the  lands  were  all  taken  up  and  cultiva 
ted  ;  and  the  excess  of  the  people  who  cannot  get  land,  want  em 
ployment.  The  manufacture  of  silk,  they  say,  is  natural  in 
France,  as  that  of  cloth  is  in  England,  because  each  country  pro 
duces  in  plenty  the  first  materials ;  but  if  England  will  have  a  man 
ufactory  of  silk  as  well  as  that  of  cloth,  and  France  that  of  cloth 
as  well  as  that  of  silk,  these  unnatural  operations  must  be  sup 
ported  by  mutual  prohibitions,  or  high  duties  on  the  importa 
tions  of  each  other's  goods, — by  which  means  the  workmen  are 
enabled  to  tax  the  home  consumer  by  greater  prices,  while  the 
wages  they  receive,  make  them  neither  happier  nor  richer,  since 
they  only  drink  more  and  work  less ;  therefore  the  governments 
in  America  do  nothing  to  encourage  such  projects." 

At  the  time  of  this  writing,  Dr.  Franklin  was  engaged  in 
stirring  up  a  rebellion  which  startled  the  world,  and  gave  being 
to  a  new  and  unique  system  of  government,  by  making  war 
against  a  most  trifling  tea  tax  and  insignificant  stamp  duties, 
just  as  the  French  afterwards  rebelled  against  the  salt  tax,  and 
every  spirited  people  have  resisted,  and  will  ultimately  triumph, 
over  petty  tyranny. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  447 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  Two  PRINCIPLES  IN  FAVOR  OF  A  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  CONTRADICTED 

EACH  OTHER. 

THE  theory  of  a  protective  tariff  rests  upon  the  two  following 
propositions  with  others  deducible  from  them,  which  contradict 
each  other : 

I.  That  a  high  duty  protects  the  home  manufacturer,  by  pre 
venting  the  importation  of  foreign  goods. 

II.  That  a  high  duty  is  the  best  and  only  means  of  creating 
a  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  government. 

Tariffs  bring  revenue  to  the  government,  by  collecting  it  of 
importations ;  tariffs  do  not, — therefore,  prohibit, — but  invite,  im 
portations  as  the  successful  means  of  raising  revenue.  If,  to 
protect  the  manufacturer,  upon  the  other  hand,  a  tariff  prohibits 
importation,  it  does  not,  therefore,  create  a  revenue. 

The  whole  system  is  a  fraud  upon  labor,  and  an  obstruction 
to  commerce. 

The  Protectionists  assume  two  facts  fatal  to  their  theory 
among  civilized  nations. 

First,  that  every  nation  owes  its  prosperity  to  non-purchase  of 
other  nations,  and  manufacture  everything,  not  only  that  for 
which  nature  has  given  them  capacity,  but  everything  which  by 
the  most  absurd  and  oppressive  aid,  the  government  may  assist 
them  to  manufacture. 

In  brief,  they  propose  a  non-intercourse  with  the  highly-civ 
ilized  kingdoms  of  the  earth,  as  exclusive  as  the  Chinese  in 
everything,  but  the  wall  which  surrounds  the  Celestial  Empire. 

The  second  fact  assumed  in  support  of  the  first,  is,  that  man 
ufactures,  and  not  commerce,  build  up  and  enrich  a  country. 

History,  however  otherwise  in  conflict,  sustains  the  fact  that 
agriculture  builds  up  commerce,  and  prohibitory  tariffs  of  duties 
upon  foreign  imports,  destroy  both. 


448  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

This  view  is  sustained  by  Doctor  Franklin,  the  most  profound 
of  all  of  our  political  philosophers,  a  Doctor  of  Laws  when  that 
proud  title  was  conferred  by  St.  Andrew's  and  Oxford  only  upon 
those  to  whom  honors  were  due,  when  refused  to  princes  of  the 
royal  blood,  and  long  before  it  was  bandied  about  in  reciprocal 
compliments,  or  paid  out  as  so  much  stock  in  trade  in  the  com 
merce  of  corruption.  A  law -giving  economist,  who  will  be  re 
cognized  as  authority  everywhere,  he  was  the  cotemporary  and 
friend  of  Adam  Smith,  Hume,  Burke,  Fox,  Chatham,  and  his 
remarkable  son,  William  Pitt,  and  the  associate  of  all  of  the  great 
est  men  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  Europe  and  America,  and 
was  inferior  to  none  of  his  associates.  He  lived  through  the 
most  wonderful  period  of  the  Christian  era,  in  which  political 
truths  were  discussed  with  unbridled  freedom,  and  political  sys 
tems  sprung  from  the  inventive  brains  of  the  most  illustrious  of 
the  heroes  and  ablest  statesmen  who  ever  spoke,  or  wrote,  or 
thought  in  the  English  language.  In  a  letter  to  a  French  gen 
tleman,  he  says : 

"  We  are  much  pleased  with  the  disposition  of  your  Govern 
ment  to  favour  commerce  manifested  in  the  late  Keglement. 
You  appear  to  be  possessed  of  a  truth  which  few  governments 
are  possessed  of.  That  A  must  take  some  of  B's  produce,  other 
wise  B  will  not  be  able  to  pay  for  that  he  would  take  of  A." 

In  regard  to  protection  in  England,  he  says : 

"  We  see  much  in  Parliamentary  proceedings,  and  in  pamph 
lets  and  papers,  of  the  injury,  of  the  concessions  to  Ireland,  will 
do  to  the  manufactures  of  England,  while  the  people  of  England 
seem  to  be  quite  forgotten,  as  if  quite  out  of  the  question.  If 
the  Irish  can  manufacture  cottons,  and  stuffs,  and  silks,  and  lin 
ens,  and  cutlery,  and  toys,  and  books,  &c.,  &c.,  so  as  to  sell  them 
cheaper  in  England  than  the  manufacturers  of  England  sell 
them,  is  this  not  good  for  the  people  of  England  who  are  not 
manufacturers?  And  will  not  even  the  manufacturers  them 
selves  share  the  benefit  ?  Since,  if  cottons  are  cheaper,  all  of  the 
other  manufacturers  who  wear  cottons  will  save  in  that  article, 
and  so  with  all  of  the  rest." 

It  may  be  justly  added,  that  no  better  evidence  of  this  simple 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL,   WAK. 


449 


truth  need  be  adduced,  than  the  practice  that  each  manufacturer, 
without  the  slightest  regard  to  the  question  of  protection  of  his 
neighboring  manufacturer,  buys  stuffs  wherever  they  may  be 
bought  cheapest.  And  it  is  a  marvellous  commentary  upon  the 
present  Congress  and  its  irrational  legislation,  that  they  are 
adorning  their  Halls  with  foreign  furniture,  and  treading  foreign 
carpets  beneath  their  feet,  and  wrapping  foreign  broadcloths 
about  their  persons. 


29 


450  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CHAPTEK  VI. 

THE  TARIFF  RESTS  UPON  ENDLESS  CONTRADICTION. 

THE  Protective  Tariff  assumes  that  everything  should  be 
manufactured  at  home,  to  give  employment  to  labor — that  labor 
ers  are  idle. 

In  the  very  next  breath,  it  assumes  that  the  reason  why  we 
need  a  duty  on  goods,  is,  that  the  labor  is  so  scarce  and  wages 
are  so  high,  that  we  cannot  compete  with  foreign  manufactures. 
The  whole  system  rests  on  a  sophism.  The  farmer  wants  fish, 
but  has  not  the  time  to  fish,  has  no  water  to  fish  in,  and  no  nets 
to  fish  with.  But  the  fisherman  has  all  of  these.  The  farmer 
plows  lands  for  cotton,  corn,  or  wheat,  and  catches  his  fish  in  that 
way  without  risk,  and  the  fisherman  raised  his  cotton,  wheat,  or 
corn,  with  the  net. 

If  the  farmer  had  gone  fishing,  he  might  have  given  that  par 
ticular  employment  to  himself  and  others  ;  but,  instead  of  this, 
the  same  amount  of  labor  was  employed  by  fishermen,  and  the 
farmer  got  his  fish  whilst  he  employed  his  labor  in  raising  pro 
vision  from  the  soil,  and  the  fisherman  gets  his  provision  by 
catching  fish. 

The  great  argument  for  protection  or  prohibition,  that  it  is 
wrong  to  prefer  foreign  manufactures  to  our  own,  might  be  just, 
but  is  inapplicable. 

If  the  foreigner  buys  our  oils  and  cotton  in  exchange,  then 
our  production  is  his  production,  and  his  production  is  our  pro 
duction.  We  produce  his  manufacture  with  our  oil  and  cotton, 
and  he  produces  our  oil  and  cotton  with  his  manufactures,  as 
clearly  as  though  each  wrought  with  his  respective  implements 
of  labor. 

This  law  is  one  which  regulates  itself  with  great  care  and  pro 
priety  ;  for,  when  we  can  raise  nothing  to  sell,  we  cease  buying ; 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE.  451 

but  when  did  any  industrious  people  become  so  reduced  ?  Un 
der  the  tariff  system,  the  poor  are  paying  one  hundred  per  cent, 
upon  the  necessaries  of  life,  thereby  reducing  them  to  starvation  ; 
and  at  the  same  time,  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  is  trans 
porting  the  surplus  female  population  to  distant  lands,  under 
pretence  that  they  are  unable  to  maintain  themselves. 

The  protectionists  complain,  that  manufactured  goods  sell  too 
cheap ;  but  who  ever  heard  a  buyer  complain  that  what  he  bought 
was  too  cheap?  There  can  be  no  other  possible  use  of  manu 
factories  to  any  country,  than  to  afford  cheap  goods  for  the  people. 
They  ought  to  exist  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  and  not  for 
their  oppression.  The  friends  of  high  duties  declare  that  by 
protection,  our  manufactories  can  successfully  enter  into  compe 
tition  with  foreign  manufacturers,  but  this  is  manifestly  untrue. 

If  our  manufactures  can  compete  with  foreign  markets,  after 
the  duties  which  they  must  pay  in  foreign  ports,  how  much  more 
easily  may  they  undersell  them  where  they  pay  no  duty.  If 
this  argument  in  favor  of  the  tariffs  were  true,  it  destroys  the 
main  one,  which  demands  protection  against  foreign  competition. 

TARIFF  DUTIES  are  simply  a  tax  levied  upon  poor  people  be 
cause  they  are  poor,  to  prevent  them  from  having  all  that  they 
need  to  eat,  and  wear,  and  warm  themselves  with.  The  manner 
in  which  the  injustice  works  is  apparent.  A  is  a  poor  man, 
and  wants  a  suit  of  plain  clothes,  on  which  he  has  to  pay  a  tariff 
of  one  hundred  per  cent.  He  complains  that  a  suit  worth 
twenty-five  dollars  should  cost  him  fifty  dollars.  But  he  is  in 
formed  that  B  is  engaged  in  manufacturing,  and  unless  he  gets 
protection  by  a  tariff,  the  British  will  be  able  to  undersell  him 
in  his  own  market,  and  moreover,  that  the  Government  needs 
tariffs  to  pay  its  necessary  current  expenses. 

Now  it  happens  that  B  and  the  English  merchant,  come  to  the 
market  together  with  goods  at  equal  first  cost.  A  could  buy  his 
suit  of  the  Englishman  at  twenty-five  dollars  and  the  tariff, 
which  makes  fifty  dollars.  But  A  buys  the  suit  of  B  for  forty- 
nine  dollars  and  fifty  cents.  In  other  words,  the  poor  laboring 
man  pays  twenty-four  dollars  and  fifty  cents  to  the  rich  manu 
facturer,  who  has  cleared  one  hundred  and  thirty  per  cent.,  prov 
ing  that  he  needed  no  protection  upon  the  one  hand,  and  the 
Government  receives  no  revenue  upon  the  other  hand. 


452  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

Daniel  Webster,  in  his  great  speech  of  1824,  thus  argues  this 
question  : 

"  Gentlemen  tell  us  they  are  in  favor  of  domestic  industry. 
So  am  I.  They  would  give  it  protection.  So  would  I.  But 
then,  all  domestic  industry  is  not  confined  to  manufactures.  The 
employment  of  agriculture,  commerce,  and  navigation,  are  all 
branches  of  the  same  American  industry.  They  all  furnish  em 
ployment  for  American  capital  and  American  labor.  And  when 
the  question  is,  whether  these  duties  shall  be  laid  for  the  purpose 
of  giving  further  encouragement  to  particular  manufactures, 
every  reasonable  man  must  ask  himself,  both,  whether  the  pro 
posed  new  encouragement  be  necessary,  and  whether  it  can  be 
given  without  injustice  to  other  branches  of  industry." 

Trying  our  manufacturers  by  this  rule,  they  have  no  right  to 
expect  further  protection,  but  the  people  have  a  right  to  demand 
a  reduction.  There  is  one  kind  of  protection  which  may  not  be  so 
objectionable  in  free  governments,  that  duty  which  may  be  collected 
of  foreigners,  and,  at  the  same  time,  in  no  wise  tax  our  own  people. 
If  you  can  conceive  of  such  an  one,  you  have  a  fair  idea  of  an  im 
partial  tariff  for  the  protection  of  manufacturers,  which,  I  frankly 
confess,  I  have  not.  But,  allowing  the  justice  of  the  principle 
of  protection  for  the  purpose  of  building  up  manufacturers, 
there  is  only  one  way  of  doing  it.  That  is  by  paying  a  direct 
bounty  to  them,  for  the  erection  of  manufactures,  as  we  have 
been  doing  to  keep  up  New  England  fisheries.  This  method 
has  this  advantage  over  the  other  methods,  that  we  then  know 
precisely  what  we  are  paying,  where  it  goes,  how  it  goes,  who 
gives  it,  and  who  gets  it. 

But,  if  it  were  right  to  protect  capital  against  labor,  why  would 
it  not  be  just,  upon  the  same  principle,  to  protect  labor  against 
capital.  If  it  were  right  to  prohibit  the  importation  of  foreign 
goods,  because  they  are  in  competition  with  domestic  manufactures, 
then  it  would  be  right  to  prohibit  foreign  emigration,  because  it 
cheapens  American  labor.  These  doctrines  are  both  wrong,  but 
a  protective  tariff  is  the  exact  and  consistent  counterpart  of  Know- 
Nothingism.  There  can  be  no  possible  reason  for  the  one  which 
would  not  well  sustain  the  other.  There  is  a  heartless  cruelty 
in  this  style  of  legislation,  that  shocks  the  moral  sense.  Can 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


453 


there  be  a  more  pitiable  spectacle  upon  earth,  than  to  see  thous 
ands  of  poor  people,  shivering  with  cold,  and  crowding  around 
a  half-fed  fire,  forced  to  pay  more  than  fifty  per  cent,  duty,  to 
the  coal  monopolists,  when  the  very  earth  is  filled  with  coal  ? 
This  is  a  duty  paid  by  the  destitute  to  the  speculator,  who  has 
the  monopoly  of  the  richest  gifts  of  heaven.  It  would  contrib 
ute  infinitely  more  to  the  wealth  of  the  country,  and  the  happi 
ness  of  the  poor,  for  the  government,  under  restrictions,  to  pur 
chase  coal  lands  for  the  use  of  the  poor,  for,  next  to  water,  it  is 
the  most  pressing  necessity  of  life,  for  which  there  can  be  no 
possible  substitute.  But  this  legislative  cruelty  extends  to  every 
thing  which  sustains  the  poor,  as  the  following  carefully  prepared 
Table  exhibits : 


THE     TARIFF    SWINDLE  -  -   HOW    CONSUMERS    ARE    LEGALLY 

ROBBED  -  COST    OF    PRINCIPAL    ARTICLES    OF  CONSUMP 

TION   WITH   OR  WITHOUT   A   TARIFF. 

Value  without  A  nft  of  Ami  prem  A  mt  tariff  Whole  cost 


to  our 


Ltlrtf/    (t-t  yurt,    t> 

N.  Y. 

Tea      per  Ib  $1.00.... 

Po^nov           (f                                         20 

gold. 

35.. 
17 

pd.  as  tar, 

17.... 
....      8.... 

cur. 

25.'.'. 

mercKts. 

4JM     CO 

.  .  .  wp  -L  •  f_/^j 

45 

<<          "                        20  ... 

23.... 

75... 

...      95 

Tnlvipprk     «                          10  .. 

51 

23 

74 

,      84 

Coffee        "       16.... 

6} 

3.... 

Nails  per  100  Ibs  2.50....$ 

51.75 

80,...$ 

J2.55.. 

'.'.'.  5.052 

Iron  2.50.... 

1.12 

40.... 

1.62.. 

...  4.12 

Trace  chains  pr  100  Ibs.  8.00.... 

3.30 

1.50.... 

4.80.. 

...12.80 

Stoves                  "     ...  3.00.... 

1.80 

80.... 

2.60.. 

...  5.61 

Sugar  6.00.... 

4.60 

2.07.... 

6.67.. 

...12.67 

Salt  per  bbl                      1.50.... 

87 

38.... 

1.25.. 

...  2.75 

Brandy  per  gal  2.00.  .  .  . 
Wine  per  doz.  bottles.  6.00.... 

2.70 
6.00 

1.21.... 
3.00.... 

3.91.. 
9.60.. 

...   5.91 
...15.60 

Hand  saw  1.00.... 

48 

20.... 

68.. 

..  1.68 

Cigars  per  100  2.00.... 
«     4.00.... 

92 
2.60 

41.... 
1.17.... 

1.33.. 

2.77.. 

...  3.38 

...  7.77 

Three-ply  carpet  pr  yd.      80  .... 
Broadcloth  per  yd...'...  4.00.... 

48 
2.40 

21.... 
1.08.... 

69.. 
3.48.. 

...  1.49 

...  7.48 

Calico                 "     20.... 

9 

i...      4.... 

13^ 

33  J 

«                     "     15.... 

3 

i...      3J.. 

12, 

....      27 

454  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 


COST   OF    AN    ORDINARY    SUIT    OF    CLOTHES    FOR    A   LABO 
MAN,  WITH  AND  WITHOUT  A  TARIFF. 

Whole 

Value        Merck's          Cost     .     ant  t  of      Prem.  Ad'tion'l  Profit 
inN.Y.        profit  of      "with  no     tariff  in           on       cost  to          of 
33  /£  cts.        tariff.        gold.           gold,  mercKts.  tnerchfs. 

Wool  bat...  81.00...     33..  .ft!  .33..     57...     25..  82...     ^7.J 

RING 

£2.43 

2.40 

19.70 

Undershirt.. 
Coat  

1  00 

33    . 

1  32  . 

50 

9,9!      75! 

24.. 

5.25..1 

8.00... 

2.66.  ..10.66.. 

4.75..  2.03.6.78..  .S 

Shirt  

1.50... 

50... 

2.00.. 

75. 

33.1.08... 

35.. 

3.45 

Pants  

3.00... 

1.00... 

4.00.. 

1.75.. 

78.2.53... 

83.. 

7.36 

Drawers  

1.00... 

33... 

1.32.. 

50. 

22.    72... 

24.. 

2.40 

Vest  

1.50... 

50... 

2.00.. 

75. 

38.1.08... 

35.. 

3.45 

Gloves... 

1.00... 

33... 

1.33.. 

60. 

27.    87... 

26.. 

2.45 

$23.98  $43.86 

COST  OF  DRESSING  A  FARMER'S  WIFE  OR  DAUGHTER  WITH  OR 
WITHOUT   A   TARIFF. 

Profit  Cost        Whole    Premium  A  dded    Profit     Whole 

Val.  in          of  with  no    amount        on         cost  to         of         cost, 

N.  Y.    Mercttt.        Tariff.     Tariff.        gold.     mercWt  mercttt.  tar.  ad 

Hat  and  trim.. .2. 00..  66. ..2  66. ..1.40..  63.. 2.03..  67.. 5.13 
Flannel  dress.. .3. 10.. 1.03. ..4.13. ..2. 60.. 1.23.. 3. 83.. 1.27.. 9. 23 

Flannel  skirt.. .2.00..  66. ..2.66. ..1.65..  75.. 2.40..  80.. 5  80 

Domestic  12yds2. 00..  66. ..2. 66. ..1.72..  32.. 1.04..  34.. 4.04 

Balmoral 2.00..  66. ..2.66. ..1.65..  75.. 2.40..  80  .5.86 

Worsted  Hose..    33..  11...    44...     16..  7..    30..  8..    75 

Gloves 30..  10...    40...    21..  9..    30..  10..     80 

Web  or  net....     60..  20...     80...    42..  19..     61..  20.. 1.61 

Handkerchief...     21..  7...     28...     10..  4..     14..  5..     47 

Collar ...      15..  5...    20...      8..  2..     11..  4..    35 

Cost  without  tariff .....$16.89     With  tariff. $34.04 

— Democratic  Almanac,  page  80. 

THE    TARIFF,    WHICH     IS    A    PROTECTION    TO     EASTERN    MON- 


The  protection  afforded  by  the  tariff,  is  partial  in  its  opera 
tions,  and  makes  the  hardship  greater,  because  it  destroys  the 
manufacturers  in  one  portion  of  the  country,  to  build  up  those 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  455 

of  another.  If  there  were  justice  in  protection  at  all,  the  West 
ern  people  should  at  once  have  protection  against  New  England. 
New  England  can  undersell  the  West  and  break  up  her  small 
manufacturers  through  her  protection,  but  the  West  receives  no 
advantage  in  return.  The  Western  people  can  trade  with  greater 
facility  by  water,  with  London,  than  by  railroad  with  Boston  — 
and  our  own  small  manufacturers  could  successfully  compete  with 
both  Great  Britain  and  New  England,  without  a  protective 
tariff. 

In  the  discussion  of  this  question,  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  there  are  two  classes  of  manufacturers  —  the  one  class  de 
manding  protection,  the  other  able  to  manufacture  without  any 
assistance  from  government.  The  first  class,  composed  of  a  few 
pampered  stock  companies,  which  avail  themselves  of  the  irre 
sponsible  privileges  of  their  charters,  make  immense  sums  of 
money  by  extortion,  and  take  advantage  of  the  necessities  created 
by  this  very  protection.  But  there  are  manufacturing  establish 
ments  that  demand  no  protection,  and  need  none,  which  furnish 
nearly  all  of  the  domestic  cloths,  satinets,  and  linsey-woolseys, 
made  and  worn  by  the  rural  Western  people ;  and  enliven  the  farms 
and  households  of  the  land,  with  the  hum  of  the  wheel  and  the 
loom,  and  distribute  to  the  various  mechanics  through  the  villages, 
where  the  small  farmer  may  find  a  ready  market  for  the  pro 
ducts  ;  and  in  exchange,  receive  the  labor  at  his  door,  of  the  hat 
ter,  shoemaker,  blacksmith,  and  other  mechanics.  The  incor 
porated  manufacturer,  who  enslaved  his  operatives  to  make  his 
machinery  profitable,  and  then  robs  the  people  of  duties  to  give 
him  immunities,  is  the  very  worst  enemy  of  that  form  of  domes 
tic  industry,  which  gives  to  the  farmer  a  market  at  his  door,  and 
diffuses  the  wealth  and  business  of  the  country  in  due  propor 
tion;  and  which  may  be  kept  up,  or  discontinued  without  great 
expense,  just  as  the  price  of  their  commodities  demand.  Thous 
ands  who  could  sell  their  products  to  the  village  manufacturer  and 
mechanic,  who  live  at  their  door,  and  benefit  them  all  with  that 
which  would  be  otherwise  wasted,  because  there  was  no  market 
for  it,  and  of  which  the  mechanic  would  be  deprived,  because  he 
was  not  in  proximity  to  it.  This  is  the  old  and  well-known 
history  of  our  ancestors,  when  every  neighborhood  had  its  card- 


456  CEIMES  OP  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

ing  machines  and  fulling  mills,  long  before  pianos  and  physi 
cians,  novels  and  French  pills,  were  introduced  into  society  as 
the  standard  necessaries  of  life.  This  style  of  manufacture  has 
been  the  staple  product  of  the  Border  and  Western  States,  and 
to  master  the  science  of  cloths  and  linens,  was  a  part  of  the  edu 
cation  of  a  good  housewife. 

But  in  the  protection  which  brings  higher  prices,  there  is  noth 
ing  added  to  the  general  wealth.  This  increased  amount  in  the 
prices,  is  paid  from  one  to  another  of  our  own  people :  for  the 
tariff  has  no  power  to  effect  sales  in  foreign  markets.  The  only 
effect  is  to  extort  a  greater  price  from  the  poor  to  aggrandize 
the  rich ;  a  tribute  from  labor  to  capital,  without  adding  one 
cent  to  the  general  wealth  of  the  country. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  fc       457 


CHAPTEE   VII. 

How  PROTECTIVE  TARIFFS  MAKE  GOODS  CHEAP. 

THE  PROTECTIONISTS,  AS  THOUGH  TO  BURLESQUE  ALL  COM 
MON  SENSE,  ASSUME  THAT  PROTECTIVE  TARIFFS  REDUCE  THE 
PRICES  OF  ARTICLES  MANUFACTURED,  TO  WHICH  PROTECTION 
IS  EXTENDED. 

If  this  be  true,  it  is  a  conclusive  argument  against  such  tariffs, 
as  unnecessary. 

The  advocates  of  protective  duties  go  much  further :  they  in 
sist  that  the  prices  of  manufactured  goods  decrease  as  the  duty 
increases.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  present  the  arguments  to 
which  such  absurdity  is  driven  to  sustain  itself. 

You  have  only  to  conceive  what  is  most  paradoxical  and  ab 
surd  in  commerce  and  finances,  to  fully  comprehend  the  range 
and  compass  of  their  teachings.  Their  theories  of  political  econ 
omy  are  addressed  to  that  peculiar  cast  of  minds  who  have  re 
ceived  these  monstrosities  as  axioms :  that  barbarians  have  a 
right  to  govern  civilized  people,  to  enforce  the  funding  and  pro 
tective  systems,  that  Christ  and  Paul  presided  over  civil  wars, 
that  the  torture  is  a  part  of  civilized  warfare  not  incompatible 
with  Christian  perfection,  that  test  oaths  and  proscription  are 
recognized  elements  of  liberal  republican  governments. 

To  such  minds  it  were  difficult  to  present  an  absurdity  so 
gross,  a  proposition  so  monstrous,  or  contradiction  so  palpable, 
as  to  challenge  their  doubts. 

There  are  times  when  a  high  protective  tariff  lowers  the  price, 
just  as  there  is  a  time  when  misers  give  up  their  money ;  a  time 
when  tyrants  relinquish  power,  and  usurers  fail  to  renew  their 
notes;  when  dissolution  breaks  their  hold.  So  with  the  manu 
facturing  system,  which  invokes  protection  from  the  Government. 
After  they  have  robbed  the  poor  to  aggrandize  the  rich;  by  high 
tariffs,  it  works  its  own  destruction. 


458  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

The  premium  offered  by  the  government  to  high  tariffs, 
diverts  capital  from  its  legitimate  channel  to  the  objects  which 
receive  protection ;  the  natural  result  is,  that  those  articles  from 
the  manufacture,  of  which  capital  is  taken,  become  scarce,  and 
the  poor  have  to  pay  enormous  prices  for  them,  which  are  no 
longer  manufactured ;  whilst  the  articles,  which  are  protected  by 
government,  are  created  far  beyond  the  legitimate  demand,  and 
ruin  the  manufacturer,  because  the  amount  manufactured  exceeds 
the  relative  proportion  which  it  ought  to  bear  to  other  articles  in 
market.  But  if  all  manufactures  are  protected  by  tariffs,  then 
they  draw  capital  and  labor  from  commerce  and  agriculture,  and 
destroy  their  relative  supply  in  the  market,  and  raise  the  prices 
in  corresponding  ratios :  so  that  ruin  overtakes  the  manufacturer 
through  the  artificial  protection  extended  to  him  by  the  govern 
ment.  This  ruin  is  wrought  in  the  most  simple  and  natural 
manner. 

1.  The  excessive  duty  impoverishes  the  consumer  and  makes 
him  unable  to  buy. 

2.  The  very  tariffs  which  impoverish  the  consumer,  pass  into 
the  pocket  of  the  manufacturer,  enrich  his   business  and  make 
trade  unhealthy,  until  the  vast  amounts  of  capital  and  labor  in 
vited  into  it,  create  great  stocks  of  goods,  which  accumulate  in 
the  country. 

3.  Then  the  abundance  of  goods  and  the  bankruptcy  of  the 
people,  bring  down  prices  far  below  their  actual  cost.     The  con 
sequence   never  remote  is,  that  the  manufacturer  suffers  bank 
ruptcy  from  his  unnatural  prosperity,  and  finally  needs  protec 
tion  ;  which  he  cannot  hope  to  get  against  a  crazy  home  competi 
tion,  and  they  all  sink  in  ruin  together. 

4.  This  diverts  frightened  capital  from  manufacturing  entirely, 
and  at  last  the  very  foreign  goods,  against  which  protection  has 
been  levelled,  of  necessity  itself,  overrun  the  country  and  new 
protection  is  demanded  for  new  follies. 

This  is  the  only  conceivable  instance  in  which  protective 
tariffs  can  make  cheaper  the  manufactured  goods  upon  which 
duties  are  levied. 

Upon  the  other  hand,  a  steady  adherence  to  legitimate  trade, 
would  make  the  supply  and  demand  in  each  branch  of  industry^ 
in  relative  and  profitable  proportion. 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAK.  459 

Now  we  need  answer  the  simple-minded  enquirer  who  would 
ask:  What  shall  we  manufacture?  The  answer  is  at  hand; 
whatever  may  be  manufactured  with  profit,  just  as  what  we  ex 
port  will  be  that  which  may  be  exported  with  profit.  In  the 
munificence  of  nature,  she  has  kindly  provided  for  the  wants  of 
men  in  the  distribution  of  her  benefits  and  the  happy  adaptation 
of  business  to  the  wants  in  every  country  on  earth. 

Trade  is  too  extensive,  involves  too  many  interests,  compre 
hends  too  many  persons,,  is  too  intricately  interwoven  in  the  web 
of  society,  to  possibly  admit  of  that  general  supervision  assumed 
by  the  protective  system.  Trade  is,  by  the  laws  of  our  being, 
committed  to  the  care  of  the  whole  human  family ;  each  man  is 
the  especial  guardian  of  that  part  which  he  assumes  —  and  the 
slightest  violation  of  its  laws,  not  only  punishes  him  with  its 
losses,  but  in  the  very  act,  transfers  his  lost  share  to  others  warn 
ed  by  his  example,  who  must  suifer  the  penalties  of  the  same 
same  violated  law.  Every  interference  by  government,  is  an 
unjust  and  unpardonable  trespass  upon  those  sacred  rights  of 
self-preservation,  which  may  not  be  done  without  injustice  to  the 
poor  and  the  consequent  suffering  of  that  unfortunate  class  of 
people,  who  have  no  voice  in  Congress,  which  can  be  heard  in 
the  clamor  of  contractors.  The  revelry  of  debauchees  and  con 
flict  of  money-changers,  have  turned  the  sacred  halls  of  the 
temple  of  liberty  into  a  den  of  thieves,  and  hold  a  general  jubi 
lee  in  the  overthrow  of  free  government. 


460  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

PROTECTIVE   TARIFFS   ARE  IN   CONFLICT  WITH    THE   GENIUS   OF   OUR 
GOVERNMENT. 

IT  is  the  duty  of  all  governments  to  protect  the  people  by  gen 
eral  laws,  equally  operative,  effecting  in  like  manner,  every  citi 
zen.  Such  is  the  spirit  and  genius  of  our  federative  republican 
system,  which  provides,  that  "No  State  shall  grant  any  title  of 
nobility."  (Art.  II,  See.  19,  Clause  15.)  "And  no  title  of  no 
bility  shall  be  granted  by  Congress."  (Art.  II,  Sec.  9,  Clause  7.) 
"  No  preference  shall  be  given  by  any  regulation  of  commerce  or 
revenue,  to  the  ports  of  one  State  over  those  of  another ;  nor  shall 
vessels  bound  to  or  from  one  State,  be  obliged  to  enter,  clear,  or 
pay  duties  in  another."  (Art.  II,  Sec.  9,  Clause  6.) 

"  Uniform  laws  of  naturalization,"  "  uniform  laws "  on  the 
subject  of  "  bankruptcies  throughout  the  United  States,"  evince 
the  elevated  spirit  of  the  fathers,  above  all  injustice  or  par 
tiality. 

What  may  not  be  directly  done,  may  not  be  done  indirectly. 
What  may  not  be  done  in  violation  of  the  letter,  may  not  be 
done  in  violation  of  the  spirit  of  the  law.  But  in  the  duties 
levied  upon  imports,  which  discriminate  in  favor  of  specific  ar 
ticles,  protecting  one  class  of  the  people  at  the  expense  of  the 
other  classes,  there  is  as  clearly  a  privileged  order,  as  though 
the  members  of  it  were  called  Barons,  Earls,  or  Lords. 

This  offence  against  the  spirit  of  our  system  is  the  very  essence 
of  protective  tariffs. 

All  legislative  interference  in  trade,  is  a  wrong  perpetrated 
against  those  to  whose  injury  the  discrimination  is  made. 

Every  duty  levied  upon  articles  manufactured,  takes  from 
the  consumer,  and  puts  into  the  hands  of  the  manufacturer,  the 
exact  amount  of  money  which  makes  the  difference  between  the 
price  of  the  article,  with  and  without  duty,  which  the  govern- 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  461 

raent  has  no  more  right  to  take  from  the  consumer  and  give  to 
the  manufacturer,  than  it  has  to  send  agents  into  the  field  of  the 
wheat-grower,  and  take  his  wheat,  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  the 
cotton-grower,  or,  take  one-half  of  the  wages  of  the  black 
smiths,  carpenters,  stone  masons,  schoolmasters,  and  physicians, 
to  bestow  luxuries  upon  the  iron  masters,  woolen  manufacturers, 
and  bankers.  There  is  no  possible  difference  between  taxing  the 
poor  one-half  of  all  that  they  expend  for  food  and  raiment,  and  add 
ing  the  amount  in  duties  on  what  they  use;  or  in  sending  a  pub 
lic  officer  to  seize  it  in  their  trunks,  or  attach  it  in  the  hands  of 
their  employees,  and  handing  it  over  to  the  manufacturer. 

The  people  have  been  injured  by  the  immense  but  natural 
exercise  of  the  protective  power  of  government ;  until  every  man 
ufacturer,  every  farmer,  and  nearly  every  other  business  man,  be 
gins  to  believe  and  feel  that,  in  some  mysterious  way,  the  govern 
ment  owes  him  a  living,  and  that  he  is,  therefore,  entitled  to1 
public  support  in  his  business  and  trade,  without  regard  to  the 
wants,  interests,  or  rights  of  other  men. 

In  this  wicked  legislation,  the  only  persons  placed  beyond  the 
pale  of  protection,  are  those  who  most  need  it.  Those,  whose 
suffering  arouses  sympathy  in  the  bosom  of  philanthropy,  are 
actually  taxed  to  support  the  idle,  profligate,  and  voluptuous. 
Such  is  the  perverted  condition  of  the  morals  of  trade. 

Manufactures,  and  the  products  of  the  earth,  were  made  for 
the  supply  of  men ;  and  men  were  not  created  for  the  benefit  and 
ownership  of  manufacturers,  bankers,  and  monopolists. 

The  poor  certainly  have  the  same  right  to  demand  cheap  food 
and  raiment,  in  the  natural  markets  of  the  world,  that  the  rich 
have  to  demand  government  aid,  to  increase  their  profits  upon 
the  food  and  raiment  of  the  poor. 

The  manufacturers  and  capitalists  complain,  that  a  refusal  to 
enslave  the  poor  by  tariffs,  to  protect  them,  is  an  invasion  of  cer 
tain  mysterious  rights  of  property,  which  they  acquire  by  virtue 
of  their  vocation.  But  the  protection  itself,  is  an  invasion  of 
life,  doubling  the  demands  upon  labor,  without  increasing  its 
power  to  satisfy  want.  "  That  man  takes  my  life,  who  takes  that 
on  which  I  live." 

It  is  the  right,  and,  moreover,  the  bounden  duty,  of  the  poor, 


462  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

to  their  large  and  growing  families,  to  buy  as  cheap  as  they  can ; 
and  no  earthly  power  hath  a  just  right  to  invade  this  prerogative 
of  nature,  and  life  itself.  The  corn  laws  of  England,  which 
were  kept  up  at  the  expense  of  human  life,  have  no  advocates 
among  the  friends  of  free  and  liberal  government. 

But  why  should  not  the  people  of  an  inhospitable  climate,  have 
cheap  clothing  ?  Is  it  not  most  remarkable,  that  the  man  who 
denies  this  right  to  the  poor,  is  a  manufacturing  prince,  who  de 
mands  half  his  earnings  to  ride  in  fine  carriages,  live  in  splendid 
houses,  riot  on  luxuries,  and  bequeath  millions  to  his  offspring? 

No  subject  is  susceptible  of  so  many,  and  such  striking  illus 
trations.  A  fair  statement  is  a  demonstration.  The  whole  pro 
tective  system,  is  simply  one  to  limit  the  amount  of  food  and 
raiment  used  by  the  poor.  This  is  undeniable. 

1.  The  duty  increases  the  price,  just  the  amount  added  to  the 
original  selling  price ;  if  it  did  not  do  this,  it  could  be  of  no 
possible  advantage  to  the  manufacturer. 

2.  If  it  adds  to  the  price,  it  diminishes  the  quantity,  or  the 
quality,  to  that  extent. 

A  tariff  on  clothes,  or  clothing,  is  a  limitation  of  the  amount 
to  be  worn  by  the  poor,  who  have  a  given  amount  of  money,  and 
can  only  lay  that  out ;  and  the  increase  on  the  price  per  yard  is  a 
diminution  in  the  number  of  yards.  But  to  illustrate  this  fully : 
A.  has  a  large  family,  needs  four  beds  with  coverlets  and  blankets, 
with  just  money  enough  to  buy  them ;  but  there  is  a  duty  levied 
of  one  hundred  per  cent,  upon  bed-clothes,  so  that  the  man  has 
to  accommodate  his  family  with  two  beds,  instead  of  four.  The 
other  two  beds  have  been,  by  the  government,  presented  to  some 
manufacturer,  whose  sons  are  pleasure-hunting  in  Europe,  and 
whose  daughters  are  revelling  in  Boston.  The  poor  farmer  has 
to  limit  the  shoes  on  his  horses,  by  the  tariff  on  iron ;  as  well  as 
the  shoes  for  his  family,  by  the  tariff  on  leather.  These  men 
look  upon  the  reasonable  price  of  the  commodities  necessary  to 
the  support  of  the  poor,  as  the  veriest  calamities. 

The  tariff  being  made  for  the  benefit  of  the  manufacturers,  he 
limits  the  amount  of  supply  against  the  poor,  just  as  the  govern 
ment  interferes  to  augment  the  prices. 

\Yhat  is  the  difference  between  licensing  manufacturers  to  pil- 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  463 

lage  the  agricultural  and  commercial  interests  of  a  country  to  the 
amount  of  one-half  their  value,  and  adding  such  duties  to  their 
manufactured  goods,  as  doubles  their  price  to  the  consumer  ?  In 
each  case  the  loss  is  the  same.  It  does  not  make  it  better  that 
the  manufacturer  pleads  poverty  or  inveighs  against  competiters. 
Legitimate  business  begets  competition.  A  man  who  sells  water, 
finds  a  competitor  in  the  rivers  and  rain.  Dealers  in  oils  and 
candles,  finds  a  competitor  in  the  sun.  The  ice  merchant  finds  a 
competitor  in  long  winters.  The  woolen  clothier  is  ruined  by 
short,  mild  winters.  Every  merchant  is  endangered  by  two  ene 
mies,  the  lack  of  demand  and  the  superabundance  of  supply ; 
but  the  customers  are  always  that  much  the  gainer  by  the  com 
petition.  Restrictions  of  trade,  or  destruction  of  competition, 
afford  no  remedy  for  any  of  the  evils  complained  of  by  the  pro 
tectionists.  The  want  of  employment  among  willing,  indus 
trious  men,  is  always  caused  by  the  unnatural  restrictions  upon 
trade,  which,  like  water,  seeks  its  level ;  and  will  only  stop  its 
wonted  course  when  dammed  up,  or  drained  by  unnatural  causes. 
The  protectionists,  to  provide  against  the  disasters  of  trade,  de 
mand  that  the  washer-woman  must  pay  four  cents  more  on  soap  per 
pound,  for  fear  the  soap-maker,  worth  only  one  hundred  thous 
and  dollars,  will  be  ruined  by  being  undersold  by  foreign  man 
ufactures.  That  is  hard  enough,  but  then  she  has  to  pay  a  duty 
of  one  dollar  on  a  pair  of  shoes  for  her  children,  for  fear  the 
shoe  merchant  and  leather  dealer,  with  half  a  million,  will  be 
broken  up  by  foreign  competition.  But  the  same  demand  is 
made  for  her  cotton  and  woolen  clothes,  to  protect  the  manufac 
turer,  worth  only  millions,  from  foreign  competition  and  bank 
ruptcy.  Then  she  must  pay  one  hundred  per  cent,  upon  her 
andirons  and  smoothing  irons ;  to  protect  the  iron-mongers,  worth 
millions  more;  and  the  same  for  the  cutler,  worth  quite  as  much. 
So  the  poor  woman  supports  two  families  by  her  constant  labor  and 
sinks  to  the  grave  through  poverty.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  she 
is  poor,  and  with  such  a  premium  given,  is  it  any  wonder  that 
those  she  supports,  are  rich  ?  The  manufacturer  complains  that 
he  is  not  making  the  money,  yet  somebody  else  has  it.  The 
highwayman  has  a  like  complaint,  that  he  lost  many  dollars  by 
losing  opportunities  to  get  it :  the  only  difference  between  these 


464  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

gentlemen,  is,  that  the  law  would  prosecute  the  one  and  protect 
the  other,  in  their  vocations  of  plunder.  "Whenever  the  business 
of  the  manufacturer  is  not  remunerative,  then  he  must  change 
it,  just  as  farmers  change  their  grain,  and  stock-raisers  change 
their  stocks,  when  it  ceases  to  pay  them  for  their  labor. 

Adam  Smith  says  : — "  To  prohibit  by  a  perpetual  law,  the  im 
portation  of  foreign  corn  and  cattle,  is,  in  reality,  to  enact  that 
the  population  and  industry  of  the  community  shall,  at  no  time, 
exceed  what  the  rude  produce  of  its  own  soil  can  maintain." 
( Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  iv,  chap.  2) 

But  what  is  true  of  corn  and  cattle,  is  precisely  true  of  every 
other  product,  whether  raw  or  manufactured ;  and  a  tariif  law  is 
simply  a  law,  limiting  the  amount  of  what  may  be  ate  or  worn 
by  the  laboring  masses,  or  poorer  people  of  a  country. 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAK.  465 


CHAPTEK   IX. 

HIGH  TARIFFS  BEGET  SMUGGLING. 
THE  EVILS  OF  A  PKOTECTIVE  TAEIFF. 

IT  is  the  enemy  of  the  government  in  the  destruction  of  that 
part  of  its  revenues,  which  are  provided  to  come  through  duties. 

The  amount  of  protection  given  by  duties  to  manufacturers, 
is  precisely  the  premium  offered  to  smugglers  who,  ever  on  the 
qui  vive,  have  the  entire  accessible  American  coast  to  enter  into 
competition  with  American  manufacturers,  where  Vice-Presi- 
dent  Breckenridge  and  Senator  Benjamin  could  pass  through  a 
carefully  blockaded  coast,  when  the  whole  United  States  navy 
was  assisting  the  whole  Federal  army  to  preserve  the  coast  in 
violate.  The  smuggling  cruisers,  in  times  of  profound  peace, 
will  cheerfully  run  the  risks,  to  reap  the  enormous  profits  of  the 
adventure.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  when  there  is  a 
duty  of  one  hundred  per  cent,  to  protect  the  manufacturer,  there 
is  a  premium  of  one  hundred  per  cent,  offered  to  smugglers  to 
carry  on  their  business. 

The  army  and  navy  requisite  to  successfully  guard  the  Ameri 
can  coast  against  smugglers  in  times  of  high  tariff,  would  not 
be  sustained  by  ten  times  the  revenues  derived  from  such  tariffs 
to  support  them.  Yet  smuggling  does  but  little  to  reduce  the 
price  of  goods,  and  leaves  to  the  people  the  difficult  choice,  whether 
to  pay  their  money  for  goods  to  the  tariff  swindlers,  or  British 
smugglers.  Such  is  the  extent  of  the  smuggling  and  the  vast 
capital,  and  the  great  number  of  ships  employed,  that  it  is  very 
clear  that  the  amount  of  good.0  brought  in  that  way  is  not  less 
than  those  imported ;  but  thehe  smugglers  share  with  the  manu 
facturers  in  the  protection  of  duties. 

Moreover,  this  illicit  commerce  is  transferred  from  American 
30 


466  CKIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

to  British  vessels ;  striking  its  triple  blow  at  manufacturers, 
commerce  and  agriculture, —  in  imitation  of  its  parent,  the  Pro 
tective  Tariff, —  by  the  smaller  amounts  paid  into  the  custom 
houses. 

This  fact  is  demonstrated  in  the  accompanying  tables: 

In  the  year  1790.t First  tariff  5  per  cent. 

"  "  1798 ....Raised  to  12J  " 

"  «  1804 Raised  to  15 J-  " 

"  "  1812 Raised  to  27 

"  "  1816 Reduced  to  25  " 

"  "  1824 Raised  to  28  « 

"  "  1828 Raised  to  90  " 

During  the  war  of  1812,  the  home  manufacture  of  every  kind 
of  goods  was  greatly  stimulated  by  the  condition  of  the  people ; 
the  spirit  of  trade  in  the  country,  was  destroyed  by  the  war, 
every  farm-house  had  the  wheel  and  the  loom  as  a  part  of  its 
furniture :  and  the  young  women  of  the  house  were  operatives 
under  the  superintendence  of  the  mother;  while  the  fathers  and 
brothers  were  in  the  army,  fighting  for  free  trade  and  sailors' 
rights. 

The  following  table  will  exhibit  the  fact  incontestable,  of  the 
receipts  of  customs  from  the  year  1815  to  1827: 

1815 836,306,022  51 

1816 27,484,100  36 

1817 17,524,775  15 

1818 21,828,451  48 

1819 17,116,702  96 

1820 12,449,556  15 

1821 15,898,443  42 

1822 20,500,775  91 

1823 , 17,003,570  80 

1824 20,385,430  42 

1825 24,358,202  57 

1826 , 20,248,054  30 

1827 22,472,067  03 

In  1815  the  receipts  were $36,306,022  51 

In  1827     "         "          "    22,472,067  03 


$13,833,955  48 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAK.  467 

A  falling  off,  tinder  the  protective  system,  of  nearly  fifty  per 
cent.,  notwithstanding  the  increase  of  population,  is  quite  as 
great,  which  makes  the  disparity  still  greater ;  instead  of  decreas 
ing  from  $36,306,022.51  in  181«5,  to  $19,700,000,  it  ought  to 
have  increased  to  $44,900,000.  These  tables  have  been  taken  far 
back,  when  the  workings  of  the  government  were  regular  and 
under  no  pressure,  and  where  the  result  of  the  two  systems  were 
discernible  in  the  collection  of  the  revenue. 

This  demonstrates  another  fact,  that  what  is  denominated  the 
protective  system,  not  only  adds  heavily  to  the  expenses  of  the 
necessaries  of  life,  but  it  depletes  the  treasury  and  forces  a  larger 
direct  taxation  upon  the  country. 


468  CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAE. 


CHAPTEE  X. 

HIGH  REVENUE  TARIFFS  UNJUST. 

THE  great  debt  has  given  a  pretext  for  levying  a  revenue 
tariff,  placed  at  the  highest  figures. 

The  Tariff,  as  a  source  of  revenue,  is  simply  a  tax  to  be  reg 
ulated  as  any  other  tax,  upon  the  same  principles  and  relative 
assessment  upon  the  people. 

The  Revenue  Tariff,  considered  purely  as  a  tax,  is  unjust, 
whether  compared  with  the  obligations  of  the  people  to  support 
the  government,  or  the  tariffs  of  other  nations.  In  Athens, 
tariffs  or  duties  on  corn,  were  one-fifth  or  twenty  per  cent.  In 
England,  for  revenue  purposes,  never  more  than  twenty  per 
cent.,  though  often  but  five  per  cent.,  before  1787.  Even  the  re 
taliatory  taxation  was  no  higher  than  twenty-seven  per  cent. 
Experience  has  demonstrated  that  anything  over  twenty  per  cent, 
is  not  a  revenue,  but  a  protective  tariff.  Duties  in  France  rarely 
exceed  eighteen  per  cent.,  when  it  was  raised  on  linen  to  twenty 
per  cent.,  the  people  murmured  almost  to  revolution. 

In  Holland,  the  richest,  and  in  Switzerland,  the  freest  gov 
ernment  in  Europe,  the  people  boasted  that  their  tariffs  never 
exceeded  twelve  per  cent.,  and  even  now,  they  scarcely  ever  ex 
ceed  twenty  per  cent. 

Cuba  is  the  richest  of  all  the  "West  India  Islands,  peerless  in 
agricultural  productions  and  commercial  intercourse  with  the 
world.  Her  exports  amount  to  four  times  as  much  per  capita 
as  those  of  the  United  States,  and  three  times  as  much  as  those 
of  Great  Britain.  Her  tariff  duties  are  generally  less  than 
twenty  per  cent.,  and  scarcely  ever  reach  twenty-five  per  cent., 
in  a  fair  and  equal  computation. 

Alexander  Hamilton,  the  father  of  the  protective  system,  pro 
posed  in  his  report,  no  such  protective  duties  on  either  iron  or 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  469 

wool,  as  those  which  now  oppress  us.  There  are  now  from  forty 
to  one  hundred  and  fifty  per  cent,  on  iron,  and  from  fifty  to  two 
hundred  per  cent,  on  woolens  and  cottons ;  on  all  of  the  neces 
saries  of  life  the  tariff  of  duties  is  five  times  as  high  as  was  re 
commended  by  Hamilton.  Even  spirits  paid  but  one  shil 
ling  per  gallon. 

The  first  tariff  under  the  Constitution,  when  money  was  scarce, 
and  American  manufactures  were  weak,  did  not  exceed  twelve- 
and-a-half  per  cent.;  in  a  single  instance  it  approached  fifteen. 
Until  after  the  second  war  with  Great  Britain,  there  was  scarcely 
an  article  which  paid  a  higher  duty  than  twenty  per  cent.,  gen 
erally  at  ten  or  fifteen.  A  table  of  duties  from  1790  to  1823, 
in  this  chapter,  shows  the  scale  of  duty.  But  the  duty  which 
is  actually  imposed,  is  at  least  twenty  to  twenty-five  per  cent, 
more  than  appears  in  the  list  to  pay  the  profit  of  the  exporter 
on  the  money  advanced. 

The  tariffs  of  1816,  1824,  1828,  were  made  purely  for  pro 
tection. 

Lord  John  Russell  says :  "  It  is  obvious,  that  high  protective 
duties  check  importation,  and,  consequently,  are  unproductive  to 
the  revenue;  and  experience  shows  that  the  profit  to  the  trader, 
the  benefit  to  the  consumer,  and  the  fiscal  interests  of  the  coun 
try  are  sacrificed  where  heavy  import  duties  impede  the  in 
terchange  of  commodities  with  other  nations.  The  same  states 
man  says :  But  upon  a  careful  view  of  our  commercial  imposts, 
we  came  to  the  conclusion,  that  by  removing  prohibitions  and 
lessening  restrictions,  it  was  possible  to  replenish  the  treasury, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  to  secure  to  the  working  classes  a  greater 
command  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  at  steady  and  moderate 
prices." 

A  and  B  have  each  $1,000  in  money.  A  hoards  his  $1,000, 
withdrawing  it  from  circulation  and  trade,  in  this  way  damaging 
business ;  he  pays  at  most,  not  more  than  two  per  cent,  in  taxation. 
B  lays  out  his  money  in  business,  and  for  everything  he  buys,  must 
pay  fifty  to  one  hundred  per  cent,  on  the  original  cost,  to  be  di 
vided  between  revenue  officers  and  manufacturers.  Is  this  just? 
Is  it  wise?  Can  argument  vindicate  this  wickedness  and  folly. 
Yet  this  is  precisely  what  we  do  to  the  injury  of  the  poor,  who 


470  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAB. 

have  to  spend  all  they  earn,  and  for  the  protection  of  the  rich, 
who  keep  all  they  have,  and  continually  add  to  their  store. 

If  duties  are  levied  as  a  tax  for  revenue  purposes,  there  is 
just  one  fair  way  in  which  to  do  it,  and  that  is  to  place  an  equal 
tax  upon  all  exportations,  in  about  the  same  ratio  that  other 
taxes  are  levied. 

The  amount  of  real  and  personal  property  in  the  United 
States  in  1860,  was  estimated  by  the  census  as  follows,  namely : 

The  assessed  value  of  real  estate $6,973,106,049 

Personalty 5,111,553,956 


$12,084,669,005 
The  true  reported  value $16,159,616,068 

Two  per  cent,  is  a  high  and  heavy  tax  upon  property,  and 
would  be,  if  levied  upon  the  whole  taxable  property  of  the 
United  States,  $24,169,338,010 ;  or  if  levied  upon  the  true  value 
of  the  property  of  the  United  States,  would  be  the  enormous 
sum  of  $32,319,232,136,  which  would  not  pay  the  interest  upon 
the  public  debt,  capitalized  with  its  pensions,  annuities,  standing 
armies  of  military  and  civil  officers. 

This  sum  of  interest  is  frightful,  but  not  to  be  compared  with 
a  tariff  which,  calculating  every  thing  fairly  of  duty  profit, 
reaches  the  enormous  sum  of  one  hundred  per  cent,  upon  every 
thing  used  by  the  people ;  and  a  levy  of  taxes  made  upon  the 
property  of  the  United  States,  making  the  present  tariff  the 
basis,  would  not  be  one  cent  less  than  $8,079,808,034.  But 
what  reason  can  be  given  why  one  class  of  citizens  and  one 
manner  of  property  should  be  taxed  at  the  expense  of  others,  in 
a  just,  fair  and  equal  government,  for  the  protection  of  all. 

But  there  is  another  view  to  take  of  this  subject.  No  people 
can  long  afford  to  pay  more  than  six  per  cent,  on  loaned  money. 
The  interest  on  the  whole  of  the  property  of  the  United  States, 
at  six  percent.,  would  be  $699,576,964.  This  sum  of  interest 
is  exceedingly  meagre  when  compared  with  the  monstrous  tariff 
paid  by  the  people. 

That  a  duty  may  be  levied  in  reasonable  sums  for  the  purpose 
of  revenue  upon  such  articles  as  contribute  to  voluptuousness, 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  471 

and  affect  not  the  ordinary  commodities  of  life,  is  not  objection 
able,  since  it  goes  into  the  treasury  of  the  United  States  from 
about  the  same  person  and  in  the  same  amounts  that  it  would 
by  direct  taxation ;  even  then,  five  per  cent,  is  a  very  heavy 
amount  for  the  consumer  to  pay  upon  every  article  for  consump 
tion,  and  the  proper  estimate  to  place  upon  this  amount,  is  to 
compare  it  with  the  rate  of  taxes  upon  land  and  money,  which 
ought  never  to  be  more  than  two  per  cent.,  (and  then  this  rate 
of  taxation  should  be  only  for  short  periods),  and  the  interest 
which  he  receives  upon  loans,  which  rarely  exceeds  eight  per 
cent,  per  annum.  The  labor  and  business  of  the  masses  of  the 
people  rarely  pay  more  than  six  per  cent.,  unless  it  is  in  the 
specific  view  of  the  starvation  of  the  poorer  class  of  people.  It 
will  be  difficult  to  justify  the  payment  of  one  hundred  per  cent, 
upon  their  daily  bread,  who,  with  all  of  their  earnings,  are  sorely 
enough  pressed  to  equally  share  the  comforts  with  the  carefully 
sheltered  domestic  animals ;  for  it  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that 
the  poor  not  only  pay  a  tariff  upon  what  they  wear,  but  they 
pay  the  tariff  on  the  goods  consumed  by  the  farmer,  who  adds 
on  the  price  of  his  grain,  though  it  makes  him  no  richer. 

The  tariff  of  1842,  then  odious  as  amounting  almost  to  a  poll 
tax,  was  about  two  dollars  a  head  upon  the  people  of  the  United 
Statss,  amounting  to  double  the  expenses  of  the  government 
annually  since  its  foundation ;  including  all  of  the  wars  with 
Great  Britain,  the  quasi  French  war,  and  all  of  the  Indian 
wars  up  to  that  time.  But  the  tariff  of  1842  is  incomparably 
lighter  than  the  one  under  which  we  suffer.  This  tariff  is  in 
finitely  more  odious  than  the  trivial  tea  tax,  which  provoked  our 
Revolution  ;  and  more  burdensome  than  the  French  salt  tax, 
which  provoked  the  French  Revolution. 

Alexander  Hamilton  wisely  concludes  that  commerce  is  the 
real  source  of  wealth  of  a  great  people ;  then  arises  the  question, 
whether  a  people,  with  peerless  commercial  facilities,  advantages 
and  resources,  may,  with  safety,  surrender  this  power  of  wealth 
which  must  forever  place  them  most  eminent  among  nations ;  to 
pander  to  the  illegitimate  lust  of  wealth  of  a  few  narrow-minded, 
selfish  monopolists,  who,  living  in  opulence,  demand  support 
at  the  public  expense.  The  United  States  have  facilities  for 


472  CRIMES  OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

commerce  never  before  enjoyed  in  the  history  of  maratime 
nations. 

Our  sea-coast  is  commensurate  with  our  whole  western  and 
eastern  boundary,  embracing  a  large  portion  of  the  southern  and 
northern  limits.  It  brings  us  into  communication  directly  with 
Asia,  Africa,  and  Europe,  South  America  and  Australia,  without 
circumlocution  of  route.  But  our  inland  position  is  scarcely  in 
ferior.  The  Mississippi,  arising  in  the  icebergs,  reaches  out  her 
extended  arms,  gathers  her  waters  from  the  snows  of  the  moun 
tains,  the  evaporations  of  the  lakes ,  and  the  clouds  of  the  con 
tinent  makes  a  high  way;  which  could  bear  on  its  bosom  all  of 
the  products  of  the  earth,  for  thousands  of  miles,  through  the 
entire  Union,  of  which  it  is  the  chief  natural  bond.  The 
Missouri,  in  no  wise  inferior  in  capacity  or  extent,  penetra 
ting  the  inexhaustible  wealth  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the 
Ohio,  drains  the  western  slope  of  the  Alleghenies ;  the  Illi 
nois,  which  forms  a  beautiful  avenue  to  the  lakes;  the  Ten 
nessee  and  Cumberland,  which  reach  out  semi-distant  to  the  gulf; 
the  Monongahela,  that  flows  beautifully  along  the  base  of  the 
mountains;  the  Alleghenies,  that  ventures  near  to  the  bays 
of  the  Atlantic;  the  James,  the  Hudson,  the  Connecticut, 
the  Potomac,  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  that  open  up  a  highway  to  the 
ocean.  Such  facilities  for  commerce  there  never  has  been  in  any 
other  country.  But  the  facilities  for  creating  and  supporting 
merchantmen  and  navies,  is  certainly  not  equalled  anywhere. 
Forests  hedging  up  the  rivers  and  clothing  the  mountains,  in 
themselves  the  foundation  of  a  trade  and  commerce  which,  for 
centuries  to  come,  will  give  employment  to  the  carrying  trade. 
The  products  of  our  soil  duly  apportioned,  borne  to  its  legiti- 
market,  will  bring  in  return  the  tea  of  China,  the  spices  of  the 
Indies,  the  silks t  of  France,  and  the  products  of  the  world,  in 
exchange  for  our  industry. 

A  wonderful  commerce  may  be  established  in  all  parts  of 
the  earth,  giving  them  the  fruits  of  the  soil  in  exchange 
for  their  wares,  and  cultivating  a  kindlier  feeling  and  nearer 
neighborhood  with  all  mankind ;  enriching  our  houses  and  cities 
with  the  wealth  of  their  trade,  and  giving  in  payment,  what 
would  otherwise  perish  on  the  ground ;  carrying  out  the  spirit  of 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  473 

freedom  in  commerce,  the  most  powerful  and  efficient  of  all  the 
agents  of  civilization  and  Christianity. 

But  tariffs  for  revenue  are  unequal,  as  tariffs  for  protection  are 
unjust.  Every  tenant  in  the  buildings  of  William  B.  Astor, 
who  supports  a  family  in  propriety  and  decency,  and  every  clerk 
of  A.  T.  Stewart,  or  of  the  Eothschilds,  pays  just  as  much  in 
tariffs  as  does  his  principal.  Stewart  and  Astor,  whose  property 
amount  to  millions,  pay  no  more  in  duties  for  what  they  eat  and 
wear  for  its  protection  by  the  government,  than  do  their  clerks, 
who  have  nothing  but  their  naked  hands  to  feed  their  families. 
It  is  only  the  more  remarkable  that  the  stupidity  of  men  should 
form  a  covering  for  such  rank  injustice.  The  iron  on  the  farmer's 
plain  wagon,  worth  $100,  pays  at  least  three  times  the  amount  of 
tariff  that  is  paid  by  the  merchant  prince's  coach  worth  $2,000. 
The  poor  woman  who  drinks  her  coffee  to  strengthen  her  nerves, 
pays  precisely  the  same  amount  of  tax  which  is  paid  by  the  wife  of 
the  millionaire ;  and  the  crippled  old  man,  tottering  on  the  grave's 
mouth,  with  scarcely  enough  money  to  finish  the  journey  of  life, 
pays  for  his  tea  and  opiates,  precisely  what  is  paid  by  Jay  Cooke, 
who  revels  in  luxury,  and  gambles  upon  the  public  stocks. 

Alexander  Hamilton,  in  his  celebrated  report  on  domestic 
manufactures,  makes  the  following  suggestions,  and  uses  the  fol- 
Jowing  arguments : 

"  Pecuniary  bounties  have  been  found  one  of  the  most  effica 
cious  means  of  encouraging  manufactures,  and  it  is  in  some 
views  the  best.  Its  advantages  are  these : 

"  1.  It  is  a  species  of  encouragement  more  positive  and  direct 
than  any  other,  and  for  that  very  reason,  has  a  more  immediate 
tendency  to  stimulate  and  uphold  new  enterprises. 

"  2.  It  avoids  the  inconvenience  of  a  temporary  augmentation 
of  price,  which  is  incited  to  some  other  modes,  or  it  produces  it 
in  a  less  degree. 

"  3.  Bounties  have  not  like  high  protecting  duties,  a  tendency 
to  produce  scarcity. 

"  4.  Bounties  are  sometimes  not  only  the  best,  but  the  only 
proper  expedient  for  uniting  the  encouragement  of  a  new  object 
of  agriculture,  with  a  new  object  of  manufacture. 

"  It  cannot  escape  notice,  that  a  duty  upon  the  importation  of 
an  article  cannot  otherwise  aid  the  domestic  production  of  it, 
than  by  giving  the  latter  greater  advantages  in  the  home  mar- 


474  CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

ket.  It  can  have  no  influence  upon  the  advantageous  sale  of  the 
article  produced  in  foreign  markets ;  no  tendency,  therefore,  to 
promote  its  exportation. 

"  As  often  as  a  duty,  upon  a  foreign  article,  makes  an  addition 
to  its  price,  it  causes  an  extra  expense  to  the  community,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  domestic  manufacturer ;  a  bounty  does  no  more. 

"  Protecting  duties  of  this  nature,  evidently  amount  to  a  virtual 
bounty  upon  the  domestic  fabrics,  since,  by  enhancing  the  charges 
on  foreign  articles,  they  enable  the  national  manufactures  to 
undersell  all  their  competitors." 

The  greatest  variety  could  not  court  a  more  flattering  tribute 
to  its  convictions,  than  the  views  of  Hamilton  against  duties. 

Now,  whenever  it  may  be  apparent  that  any  species  of  manu 
facturing  is  necessary  to  the  general  welfare  of  the  country,  and 
cannot  be  constructed  by  the  manufacturer  himself,  without  gov 
ernment  aid,  then  let  the  government  extend  such  aid  as  may  be 
necessary. 

This  plan  is  honest,  because  it  is  direct.  The  people  know 
just  what  they  pay;  to  whom,  and  how  they  pay  it. 

There  can  be  no  evasion  of  revenue  laws  by  smuggling,  which 
is  now  so  common  that  mankind  look  upon  the  smuggler  as  a 
public  benefactor,  furnishing  the  poor  with  cheap  goods ;  and  it 
will  be  many  centuries  before  a  sense  of  justice  will  condemn 
the  smuggler,  who  assists  the  stinted  poor  to  sustain  the  manu 
facturing  princes  and  money  lords  in  the  enjoyment  of  an  odious 
monopoly,  which  inures  to  the  positive  oppression  of  the  labor 
of  the  country. 

Mr.  Jeiferson  uses  this  demonstrative  language  in  regard  to 
the  tariff  policy  :  "  I  duly  received  yours  of  the  23d  ultimo,  as 
also  two  pamphlets  you  were  so  kind  as  to  send  me.  That  on 
the  tariff  I  observed,  was  soon  reprinted  in  Ritchie's  Enquirer. 
I  was  only  sorry  he  did  not  postpone  it  till  the  meeting  of  Con 
gress,  when  it  would  have  gotten  into  the  hands  of  the  members, 
and  could  not  fail  to  have  a  great  effect,  perhaps  a  decisive  one. 
It  is  really  an  extraordinary  proposition  that  the  agricultural, 
mercantile  and  navigation  classes ,  should  be  taxed  to  maintain  that 
of  manufactures." 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAK.  475 


PETITION    OF   THE    MEKCHANTS   OF   LONDON  TO   PARLIAMENT. 

"  To  the  Honorable  the  House  of  Commons  of  the  United  King 
doms  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland^  The  humble  petition  of  the 
undersigned  merchants  of  the  city  of  London,  showeth  that  for 
eign  commerce  is  eminently  conducive  to  the  wealth  and  pros 
perity  of  a  country,  by  enabling  it  to  import  the  commodities 
for  the  production  of  which  the  soil,  capital,  climate  and  indus 
try  of  other  countries  are  best  calculated,  and  to  export,  in  pay 
ment,  those  articles  for  which  its  own  situation  is  better  adapted. 

"  That  freedom  from  restraint  is  calculated  to  give  the  utmost 
extension  to  foreign  trade,  and  the  best  direction  to  the  capital 
and  industry  of  the  country. 

"That  the  maxim  of  buying  in  the  cheapest  market  and  selling 
in  the  dearest,  which  regulates  every  merchant  in  his  individual 
dealings,  is  strictly  applicable,  as  the  best  rule  for  the  traders  of 
the  whole  nation. 

"That  a  policy  founded  on  these  principles  would  render  the 
commerce  of  the  world  an  interchange  of  mutual  advantages, 
and  diffuse  an  increase  of  wealth  and  enjoyments  among  the  in 
habitants  of  each  State.  ***#;; 

This  declaration  of  axioms  in  political  economy,  by  so  able  a 
body  as  London  merchants,  in  a  country  where  such  vast  sums 
of  wealth  are  invested  in  manufactures,  is  significant  of  the  fol 
lowing  facts,  which  they  state  at  great  length  in  detail : 

"  1.  That  tariffs  inflict  on  the  bulk  of  consumers  the  necessity  of 
submitting  to  privations,  in  the  quantity  or  quality  of  commodi 
ties. 

"  2.  That  restriction  in  commerce  does  not  add  to  our  own 
wealth,  but  it  is  demonstrable  that  the  importation  of  articles 
into  the  country,  does  not  diminish  our  wealth,  but  it  enables  us 
to  sell  what  we  do  not  want,  by  buying  what  we  do  want,  from 
those  who  manufacture  them.  This  is  just  what  makes  com 
merce. 

"  3.  That  no  ultimate  benefit  accrues  to  those  manufacturers 
in  whose  favor  prohibitory  duties  have  been  passed. 

"  4.  That  if  you  prohibit  one  article  by  heavy  duties,  the  de 
mand  will  come  up  from  all  other  producers  upon  the  govern 
ment  upon  their  behalf,  and  drive  them  to  the  necessity  of  ex 
cluding  everything  which  we  produce  —  gold  among  the  rest  — 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


for  it  is  with  a  gold-producing  people  a  commodity,  in  nu^et  as 
.veil  as  a  medium  of  exchange.     We  then  do  on  mper  what  the 
Chinese  do  by  stone;  we  build  great  walls  around  our  commer 
cial  existence  beyond  which  it  is  not  allowed  to  pass 
5.  That  the  most  liberal  is  the  most  politic  course." 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  477 


CHAPTEE    XL 

VILLAINIES  OF  THE  TARIFF. 

THE  injustice  of  the  protective  system  is  scarcely  more  bare 
faced,  than  the  corruptions  of  the  revenue  system  of  duties. 
These  are  so  apparent,  that  proof  becomes  difficult  to  make  it 
plainer.  If  10,000,000  families,  or  30,000,000  persons,  wear 
an  article  upon  which  the  duty  is  fifty  per  cent.,  or  amounts  to 
fifty  dollars,  they  then  pay  $300,000,000,  per  annum;  not  for  the 
support  of  government,  but  for  the  enriching  of  manufacturing 
princes,  who  are  already  clamoring,  because  they  have  not  where 
withal  to  spend  their  means ;  or  barns  and  houses  in  which  to 
store  their  goods.  But  the  flagrant  villainy  of  this  system  of 
robbery,  is  still  more  apparent  in  a  case  like  this :  A  has 
$1,000,000  worth  of  stuffs,  on  hand,  and  a  duty  of  one  hundred 
per  cent,  is  levied  upon  this  kind  of  goods.  By  this  very  legis 
lation,  $1,000,000  is  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  fortunate  owner. 
Not  by  chance,  however,  but  generally  by  connivance  and  bri 
bery  of  unprincipled  Congressmen,  who  are  in  the  secret  service 
of  the  wholesalers. 

What  a  crime  against  justice,  and  honor,  and  humanity,  that 
enormous  sums  should  be  made  out  of  the  very  life-blood  of 
the  people,  their  food,  and  fire,  and  raiment,  and  shelter. 

But  this  crime  often  becomes  a  powerful  instrument  of  specu 
lation,  and  immense  sums  of  money  are  made,  by  the  collusion 
of  members  of  Congress,  and  immense  holders  of  stocks.  We 
cite  but  an  instance,  which  was  consummated  by  flagrant  bri 
bery  of  members  of  Congress,  who  sold  their  votes  for  immense 
sums,  to  the  whiskey  owners,  and  then  gravely  cast  them  in  favor 
of  an  exorbitant  duty  upon  the  manufacture  of  alcohol  and  spir- 
itous  liquors. 

The  extent  of  this  enormous  speculation,  may  be  gathered  from 
the  following  statistics : 


478  CHIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK. 

The  amount  of  spiritous  liquors  distilled  in  the  year  1860,  in 
the  United  States  alone,  was  88,002,988  gallons,  at  an  estimated 
value  of  $24,253,176,  at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  duty  on 
such  liquors.  It  is  safe  to  calculate  that  there  was,  at  least,  the 
products  of  two  years  on  hand.  Then  we  have  176,005,976 
gallons,  with  a  value  of  $48,506,352,  with  a  duty  of  $2,00  per 
gallon,  $352,071,952  added  to  the  wealth  of  these  liquor  holders, 
or  more  than  seven-hundred  per  cent,  upon  the  original  value, 
leaving  $300,000,000  in  their  hands,  after  they  had  used  fifty 
millions  of  dollars  for  the  purchase  of  a  corrupt  and  mercenary 
Congress,  who  were,  most  likely,  bought  for  a  less  sum,  and 
their  votes  put  into  the  market  at  a  lower  price ;  but  this  calcu 
lation  makes  due  allowance  for  the  payment  of  commission,  to 
that  vast  army  who  throng  the  Capital  to  corrupt  its  legislation, 
and  pollute  the  atmosphere  which  poisons  everything  with 
wrhich  it  comes  in  contact,  and  attempts  the  destruction  of 
everything  with  which  it  is  brought  in  conflict. 

The  frauds  practiced  in  Congress,  begets  the  wicked  cheats 
practiced  in  consequence  of  it.  After  the  Congress  had  raised 
the  price  of  whiskey,  unfortunately  it  did  not  abolish  men's 
vicious  appetites.  There  was  even  more  whiskey  and  delete 
rious  combinations  drank,  than  ever  before.  But  this  trespass 
upon  health,  and  happiness,  was  the  result  of  the  premium 
offered  by  the  foolish  and  corrupt  legislation,  which  debauched  its 
members  and  enriched  the  whiskey  dealers. 

But  all  tariffs  are  premiums  offered  to  fraud.  The  necessities 
of  the  poor  drive  them  to  seek  refuge  in  low  prices,  and  the 
cheats  in  manufacture,  form  at  least  two-thirds  of  the  articles  of 
every  kind  in  the  whole  market.  Shoes,  hats,  cloths,  cottons, 
and  mixtures  of  every  kind,  and  these  are  all  bought  by  the 
poor,  who  are  unable  to  buy  the  first  quality.  With  these  pre 
miums  offered  to  fraud,  which  stimulate  smuggling,  to  bring 
sound  wares  to  the  country,  be  not  surprised  that  the  home  vil 
lains  with  less  scruples,  should  impose  upon  the  consumer,  as  the 
foreign  smuggler  stealthily  defrauds  the  government.  The  de 
liberate  cheats  perpetrated  upon  the  market,  never  could  extend 
without  the  aid  of  tariff,  but  such  is  their  extent,  that  the  con 
sumer  is  never  surprised  except  when,  by  the  merest  accident,  he 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  479 

finds  himself  the  lucky  purchaser  of  an  article  which  does  not 
readily  fall  to  pieces  by  the  handling. 

These  frauds  are  the  legitimate  results  of  the  system  of  duties, 
and  they  practically  discriminate  in  the  same  kind  of  food  and 
raiment,  in  favor  of  the  rich  and  opulent. 

So  struck  and  stung  with  this  injustice  was  Henry  Clay,  that 
in  1832,  he  says  in  the  UNITED  STATES  SENATE  :  "!F  THE 

UNIVERSALITY  OF  THE  USE  OF  OBJECTS  OF  CONSUMPTION  DE 
TERMINE  THEIR  CLASSIFICATION,  COFFEE,  TEA,  AND  THE 
SPICES,  IN  THE  PRESENT  CONDITION  OF  CIVILIZED  SOCIETY, 
MAY  BE  CONSIDERED  NECESSARIES,  EVEN  IF  THEY  ARE  LUXU 
RIES.  WHY  ARE  NOT  THE  POOR,  BY  CHEAPENING  THEIR 
PRICES,  IF  THAT  CAN  BE  EFFECTED,  BE  ALLOWED  TO  USE 
THEM." 

TAXATION  AND  TARIFFS   COMPARED. 

In  the  ever  changing  effort  to  lighten  the  burdens  of  taxation 
by  shifting  it  from  one  place  to  another,  it  must  finally  rest  upon 
the  shoulders  of  labor,  which  not  only  pays  everything,  but 
produces  everything. 

All  the  weight  of  taxation  falls  upon  labor,  and  is  a  drain 
upon  the  creative  energies  of  the  country. 

Capital  always  manages  to  get  into  coalition  with  the  govern 
ing  power  to  oppress  labor. 

Capital  pays  nothing.  When  houses  are  taxed,  the  landlord 
transfers  the  tax  to  the  tenant,  and  adds  it  to  the  rent,  and  gen 
erally  exacts  it  in  advance. 

If  the  land  is  taxed,  the  proprietor  deducts  the  taxes  from 
the  value  of  the  crops.  Necessity  compels  this,  for  if  he  did 
not,  he  would  have  to  dispose  of  his  property  to  relieve  him  of 
taxation. 

If  this  taxation  is  made  in  the  form  of  tariff,  then  the  manu 
facturer  adds  it  to  the  price  of  his  goods,  with  the  stamps,  profits, 
interest,  storage,  freight,  clerk  hire,  and  house  rent,  until  it 
reaches  the  squalid  hovels  of  the  poor,  who  never  lay  up  a 
month's  rent  in  advance,  or  provisions  beyond  their  weekly 
wages.  The  successive  accumulations  are  piled  up  by  the  last 
retailer,  who  doles  out  his  goods  as  his  customers  may  be  able  to 


*80  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK. 

pay  for  them.  Every  item  of  intervening  cost  is  added  as 
it  comes  due  at  each  counter,  until  it  has  gone  the  routine  of 
trade. 

The  rich  tax-payer  knows  the  amount  of  his  taxes,  feels  the 
weight,  and  complains  of  it ;  whilst  the  half-starved,  half-naked 
wretch  who  pays  the  tariff,  is  assured  that  it  is  so  much  added 
for  his  protection,  and  that  it  has  cheapened  his  food  and  rai 
ment  to  the  full  amount  of  the  tariff  levied. 

These  simple-minded  people  believe  these  absurdities,  with  the 
same  credulous  wonder  that  they  witness  jugglers  take  off  heads 
and  put  them  on  again,  shoot  bullets  into  his  hat,  and  wrap  it  up  in 
his  handkerchief.  They  cannot  tell  when  or  how,  but  are  will 
ing  to  take  his  oath  that  it  has  been  done. 

It  is  so  that  the  poor  fellow  pays,  all  told,  quite  one  hundred 
per  cent,  upon  his  food  and  raiment.  He  pays  two  dollars  for 
what  one  ought  to  buy,  but  they  prove  to  him  that  he  gets  it  the 
cheaper  by  paying  two  prices  for  it. 

The  taxes  and  tariffs  of  late  have  thrown  off  all  disguise,  and 
aim  their  blows  at  the  poor  by  taxing,  directly,  those  things 
which  are  necessary  to  his  existence. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL,    WAR.  481 


CHAPTER   XII. 

CHARACTER  OF  MANUFACTURERS. 

WHO  ARE  THESE  MANUFACTURERS  who  ask  immunities  not 
common  to  the  citizen  ?  They  amount  to  the  merest  handful  of 
the  American  people,  of  whom  they  demand  support,  by  levying 
tribute  on  the  price  of  the  commodities  of  life. 

In  this  class,  you  must  exclude  the  following  classes  of  busi 
ness,  namely:  — 

1.  The  whole  agricultural  population. 

2.  Those  engaged  in  commercial  pursuits. 

3.  Those  engaged  in  the  fisheries. 

4.  The  country  tradesmen. 

5.  The  miners  of  oil,  gold,  copper,  &c. 

6.  Professional  men  of  all  classes. 

7.  Daily  laborers. 

8.  Those  engaged  in  the  public  works  of  the  country. 

Leaving  an  exceedingly  meagre  interest,  demanding  a  protec 
tive  tariff,  and,  it  may  be  assumed,  without  controversy,  that  there 
is  not  a  single  interest,  material  to  the  prosperity  of  the  country, 
which  needs  protective  duties,  other  than  those  which  are  inci 
dental,  by  raising  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  government. 

There  can  be  no  reason,  founded  in  justice  or  right,  for  the 
protection  of  any  one  business,  at  the  expense  of  another.  The 
claim  set  up  is  a  fraud  upon  all  of  the  laws  of  industry.  Intelli 
gent  labor  will  always  apply  itself  to  such  pursuits  as  will  most 
liberally  remunerate  the  operative,  and,  at  the  same  time,  con 
tribute  most  to  the  general  wealth.  Any  departure  from  this 
rule,  is  a  sacrifice  of  the  common  good,  and  a  waste  of  labor. 

The  cotton  planter  demands  no  protection,  because  his  labor 
remunerates  him.     The  cotton  planter  needs  no  protection,  be 
cause  protection  could  not  benefit  him. 
31 


482  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

The  manufacturer  asks  protection,  and  pleads  as  cause,  that  he 
has  to  employ  labor  at  such  prices,  and  in  such  business,  as  will 
not  remunerate  him.  This,  although  it  is  not  true,  as  is  amply 
proven  by  their  own  reports,  which  exceed  all  other  brandies  of 
business,  would  be  a  good  reason  for  the  abandonment  of  a  pri 
vate  business,  which  could  not  be  carried  on  without  public  do 
nations;  but  certainly  not  for  the  appropriation  of  the  daily 
wages  of  the  poor  people  of  the  country,  to  support  manufactur 
ing  princes  in  opulence ;  nor  could  it  change  the  laws  of  political 
economy. 

If  the  manufacturer  in  New  England  may  make  this  demand 
and  receive  this  aid,  where  shall  it  lead  us?  Some  gentleman 
has  a  few  mulberry  trees,  or  has  planted  a  thousand  acres  of  the 
morus  multicaulisj  has  purchased  many  thousand  silk  worms,  has, 
at  great  expense,  gone  to  Europe,  and  employed  much  time  in 
learning  the  whole  silk  business ;  and  applies  to  Congress  to  pro 
hibit  the  importation  of  silk,  by  making  every  person  who  wears 
silks,  pay  such  duty  upon  all  of  the  silks  worn  in  the  country,  as 
would  remunerate  him  for  his  expenses,  loss  of  time,  &c. 

Some  enterprising  gentlemen  propose  to  raise  tea  in  competi 
tion  with  the  Chinese,  and  demand  protection  against  that  peo 
ple  who  can  raise  his  beverage  cheaper ;  and  both  the  silk  and 
tea  growers,  give  as  a  reason,  why  they  cannot  compete  with  the 
Chinese  or  French,  in  the  growth  of  the  several  articles,  is  the 
depreciated  prices  of  labor  in  France  and  China ;  as  the  woolen 
and  iron  manufacturers  urge  the  exceedingly  low  wages  of  labor 
in  England,  and  the  iron  producing  countries  of  Europe. 

What  remedy  do  these  magnanimous  gentlemen  propose  to 
make  up  for  the  low  wages  of  labor  ?  Why,  simply  taking  one 
half  of  all  the  wages,  in  duties  on  their  tea,  coffee,  sugar,  hats, 
coats,  breeches,  on  every  thing  from  the  soul  of  the  feet  to  the 
crown  of  the  head,  from  the  very  laborers  for  whom  they  are 
demanding  protection  of  the  government,  and  incorporated  in 
that  very  protection. 

Another  enterprising  gentleman  in  the  mountains,  inaccessible 
by  railroads,  and  surrounded  by  barren  deserts,  has  an  iron  bed 
and  coal  field,  covering  a  full  thousand  acres  of  land,  and  that  is 
his  only  property  j  and  unless  the  government  will  prohibit  the 


CHIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR.  483 

importation  of  iron  from  elsewhere,  or  levy  a  tax  upon  every 
body  who  uses  iron,  of  one  hundred  per  cent.,  is  ruined,  or,  at 
least,  has  lost  the  value  of  a  vast  speculation,  which  cost  him  a 
song ;  and  his  vast  cataract  of  unequaled  \vater  power  will  go  on 
wasting  its  force  in  the  sea,  until  the  end  of  time.  But  it  is  well 
worthy  of  enquiry,  whether  it  is  not  really  better  that  this  gen 
tleman  forego  his  princely  speculation,  than  that  every  poor  man 
in  America  should  pay  two  prices  for  his  iron,  and  in  the  general 
exaction  of  manufactures,  reduce  the  wages  of  his  labor  one-half, 
before  it  has  reached  his  pocket.  It  were  far  better  for  the  peo 
ple  -using  iron,  to  knight  him,  grant  him  a  peerage,  or  pay  his 
board  at  the  Astor  or  Girard,  with  his  family,  for  life. 

This  is  the  true  and  just  test  of  the  productive  power  of  any 
business,  that  it  is,  at  least,  self-supporting.  It  ought  to  yield 
such  profits  as  will  pay  the  fair  interest  on  the  money  invested, 
and  wages  suitable  to  the  ability  of  the  managers  and  operatives. 
Whenever  it  does  not  realize  this  much,  self-preservation  requires 
its  immediate  abandonment. 

The  great  (not  Secretary)  McCulloch,  says :  "A  man  who  does 
not  succeed  in  a  business  carried  on  at  his  own  door,  so  well  as 
one  who  resides  a  hundred  miles  off,  must  look  for  the  cause  in 
his  own  want  of  skill  and  industry,  and  should  seek  rather  to 
improve  himself,  than  to  discard  his  rival." 

This  is  the  unchangeable  law  of  trade,  and  the  immutable  law 
of  justice.  It  is  the  life  of  industry,  and  the  secret  power  of 
liberty,  that  men  choose  and  change  their  avocations,  as  they  may 
be  made  profitable  and  agreeable. 

The  protection  by  law,  of  a  privileged  class,  by  oppressing  or 
abridging  the  rights  of  the  people,  or  at  the  expense  of  the  en 
joyment  of  others,  is  the  most  odious  style  of  aristocracy,  and 
the  most  oppressive  and  offensive  mode  of  predatory  inroads 
upon  private  property. 

It  were  laughable  to  hear  the  pitiful,  canting  Puritan,  whin 
ing  in  his  nasal  twang,  for  protection  of  his  manufactures,  at  the 
very  time,  when  his  profits  have  absorbed  the  labor  of  the  coun- 
l  try ;  but  it  is  deplorable  to  see  the  consumers,  the  poor  of  the 
country,  trodden  down  by  the  most  odious,  monstrous  taxation, 
to  support  this  injustice. 


484  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

There  can  be  no  more  ridiculous  jumble  of  political  economy, 
nor  a  greater  outrage  upon  the  prosperity  of  a  people,  than  the 
support  of  one  branch  of  industry,  at  the  positive  expense  of  all 
the  other  industry  of  the  country. 

Yet  this  body  of  political  empyrics  scarcely  cease  their  eulo 
gies  upon  the  benefits  to  manufacture,  until  they  declare,  in 
rhapsody,  their  devotion  to  commerce;  this  is  less  remarkable, 
when  it  is  remembered  how  this  confusion  was  embodied  by  the 
Chicago  Convention,  which  President  Lincoln  never  hesitated  to 
declare,  as  the  interpretation  of  his  political  views,  and  paramount 
to  all  constitutional  obligations. 

Commerce,  more  than  any  other  branch  of  industry,  creates 
wealth,  and  dispenses  affluence  with  a  liberal  hand;  and  opens  up 
to  the  people  an  abundance  of  the  necessaries  and  comforts  of 
life,  and  places  within  their  reach,  the  luxuries  of  the  world. 

Commerce  is  the  source  of  the  wealth  of  all  great  countries, 
without  which  no  first-class  power  ever  has  or  ever  will  exist. 

Commerce  and  agriculture  are  twin  sisters,  mutually  embrac 
ing  and  supporting  each  other.  Commerce  makes  free  cities,  and 
agriculture  makes  free  countries.  Both  agriculture  and  com 
merce,  are  the  patrons  of  manufactures. 

Agriculture  feeds  manufactures,  and  commerce  bears  them 
each  to  their  legitimate  market,  and  acts  as  factor  for  both.  They 
are  all  the  common  property  of  the  world,  and  cannot  be  re 
strained. 

The  protective  tariff  is  the  enemy  of  all  these  great  sources  of 
wealth,  power,  and  glory,  of  a  great  nation. 

The  protective  tariff  is  a  misnomer ;  it  was  never  made  to  pro 
tect  manufactures  as  a  system  of  universal  wealth,  but  to  destroy 
their  universality,  by  prohibiting,  restricting,  and  encouraging 
them,  as  the  case  might  be,  under  pretense  of  fostering  some  par 
ticular  manufactory  in  some  given  locality,  at  the  expense  of  the 
whole  manufacturing  world  beside. 

The  tariff  is  the  positive  enemy  of  commerce,  destroying  its 
business  of  transportation  by  the  prohibition  of  importation  and 
exportation  of  goods,  without  which  there  can  be  no  commerce 
to  prevent  the  manufacture  of  articles,  but  to  protect  their  prices 
in  favor  of  the  rich  and  against  the  poor.  The  object  of  the 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  485 

tariff  is  not  to  increase,  but  to  diminish  manufactures,  that  the 
monopoly,  which  absorbs  the  business,  may  necessitate  the  con 
sumer  to  buy  at  advanced  and  exorbitant  prices. 

The  tariff  is  the  bane  of  agriculture :  exacting  a  tribute  of  full 
one-half  of  its  products ;  to  settle  the  controversies  and  conten 
tions  between  rival  manufactories. 

The  tariff  is  a  selfish  mercenary,  which  wars  in  the  interest 
of  monopoly.  After  it  has  destroyed  manufactures,  by  setting 
them  at  war  with  each  other,  driven  commerce  from  the  ocean 
for  the  want  of  employment,  and  robbed  agriculture  of  half  her 
hard  earnings,  to  take  sides  with  fighting  manufactures ;  the 
narrow,  monopolizing  spirit  of  prohibitory  tariffs  would,  were 
it  possible,  lay  a  restriction  upon  the  clouds,  that  it  might  specu 
late  upon  water,  just  as  they  hoard  flour  and  meat  to  speculate 
upon  the  anguish  of  the  destitute.  These  monopolists  have  erected 
no  toll-gates  upon  the  ocean,  only  because  she  cannot  be  placed  in 
bonds ;  but  they  have,  at  every  port  of  entry,  a  collector's  office, 
to  gather  up  the  wealth  of  the  world  as  a  tax  upon  what  God 
had  ordained  as  free.  The  air  that  men  breathe,  has  not  been 
monopolized  by  a  joint  stock  company,  only  because  its  unchain 
ed  liberty  defies  the  prison  of  the  tyrant,  and  passes  through  the 
store-houses  of  the  monopolist,  without  restraint ;  who  would 
dole  it  out  to  the  poor,  or  tax  the  wealth  of  the  rich,  for  the 
privilege  of  indulging  in  its  luxury. 

The  sun  would  add  to  the  list  of  monopolies,  and  his  precious 
light  be  a  fortune  in  the  hands  of  some  shrewd,  sharp  man, 
were  his  glories  within  his  monopolizing  reach,  and  the  foun 
tain  of  his  light  subjected  to  his  control. 

The  purpose  of  commerce  is  to  extend  and  command  trade ; 
knowing  no  bounds  but  the  habitable  globe.  It  catches  the 
commission  of  the  Saviour  to  the  Apostles,  as  it  falls  from  his 
lips :  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  preaching  the  gospel  to  every 
creature/7  and  fulfils  its  appointed  mission. 

The  office  of  the  tariff  is  to  arrest  trade,  and  cut  off  inter 
course  with  other  nations,  and  travel  back  in  the  pathway  of 
progression  to  the  ages,  when  each  tribe  of  savages  was  content 
to  kill  the  beast  in  his  lair,  to  clothe  himself  with  its  skin,  and 
eat  its  flesh  with  his  fingers. 


486  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

The  old  philosopher,  Franklin,  never  at  a  loss  for  illustra 
tions,  which  shone  from  his  clear  mind  like  the  rays  of  the  sun, 
says  :  "  I  have  seen  so  much  embarassment,  and  so  little  advan 
tage  in  all  the  restraining  and  compulsive  systems,  that  I  feel 
myself  strongly  inclined  to  believe  that  a  State  which  leaves  all 
her  ports  open  to  all  the  world  upon  equal  terms,  will,  by  that 
means,  have  foreign  commodities  cheaper,  and  sell  its  own  pro 
ducts  dearer,  and,  on  the  whole,  be  most  prosperous." 

Again  :  "  Perhaps  it  would  be  better  if  government  meddle 
no  further  with  trade  than  to  protect  it,  and  let  it  have  its  course. 
Most  of  the  statutes  or  acts,  edicts,  arrests,  and  placards  of  Par 
liament,  princes  and  States,  for  regulating,  directing,  or  restrict 
ing  trade,  have,  we  think,  been  either  political  blunders,  or  jobs 
obtained  by  artful  men  for  private  advantage,  under  pretence  of 
public  good.  When  Colbert  assembled  some  wise,  good  mer 
chants  of  France,  and  desired  their  advice  and  opinion  how  he 
could  best  serve  and  promote  commerce,  their  answer  was  in 
these  three  words  only :  '  Laissez  nous  faire ' —  let  us  alone.  It  is 
said  by  a  very  solid  writer,  that  *  he  is  well  advanced  in  the 
science  of  politics,  who  knows  the  full  force  of  that  maxim, 
<  Pas  trop  Gouverner  ' — not  to  govern  too  much  ;  which  would 
be  of  more  use  when  applied  to  trade,  than  in  any  other  public 
concern.  It  were,  therefore,  to  be  wished,  that  the  commerce 
was  as  free  between  all  of  the  nations  of  the  earth,  as  between 
the  several  counties  of  England ;  so  would  all,  by  mutual  com 
munications,  obtain  more  enjoyment."  These  propositions  are 
demonstrative,  and  forbid  amplification. 


CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAB.  487 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

CURSE  OF  MANUFACTURING  MONOPOLIES 

IF  the  doctrine  of  protection  were  *»«J  all  admissable  in  a  gov 
ernment  of  equals,  there  are  no  Basses  of  industrial  pursuits  that 
contribute  so  little  to  the  Happiness  of  society,  as  the  manufac 
turing  companies  *»»<!  monopolists  of  the  country.  There  are 
no  classes  f>£  people  so  degraded  by  the  direct  supervision  of 
the'1'  employer,  as  are  the  operatives  in  these  establishments. 

Like  the  clock,  they  are  forced  to  move  with  mechanical  pre 
cision.  The  watchman  keeps  the  time  exact  of  their  entrance 
into  the  work-shop,  and  carefully  notes  their  application  during  the 
working  hours.  Children  are  educated  mechanically  to  this 
business,  and  grow  up  destitute  of  social  advantages,  and  die  al 
most  in  the  same  condition.  Their  labor  and  surveillance  are 
only  less  degrading  than  States  prison  life,  and,  beyond  all  com 
parison,  more  confining,  monotonous,  and  exhaustive  of  human 
life,  than  any  plantation  labor  hitherto  assigned  to  any  part  of 
the  American  slaves. 

Their  manhood  is  absorbed  in  that  of  the  proprietor  of  the 
establishment  in  which  they  are  employed. 

On  election  mornings,  the  proprietor's  party  ticket  is  hung  up 
in  large  letters,  where  it  will  attract  the  attention  of  every  voter, 
with  the  general  understanding  that  the  operative  should  cast 
his  vote  for  it.  If,  on  the  election  day,  he  should  vote  in  oppo 
sition,  he  will  be  called  to  the  paymaster's  room  and  informed 
that  his  services  are  no  longer  needed  in  the  establishment. 

This  exercise  of  freedom  rarely  occurs,  however.  A  long  con 
tinued  bondage  keeps  him  in  poverty,  until  he  finally  looks  upon 
his  work-shop  as  the  horse  looks  upon  the  tread-mill,  and  is  so 
impoverished  that  he  could  not  remove  from  it  if  he  would. 
He  has  no  place  to  go,  and  worse  than  all,  his  factory  life  has 


488  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

disqualified  him  from  the  pursuit  of  any  other  business,  if  he  de 
sired  to  go,  or  had  the  means  to  remove.  Not  a  greater  propor 
tion  of  these  men  escape  from  this  bondage  than  did  the  slaves 
from  the  plantations.  The  able  exposition  by  British  reformers 
of  the  condition  of  their  manufacturing  systems,  could  not  be 
improved  upon,  and  apply  quite  as  appropriately  to  America. 
*WQ  quote  from  one  of  the  most  moderate  and  philosophical,  that 
''  the  increaz/'  of  our  manufacturing  system  has  unquestionably 
effected  already  a  vmsiderable  revolution  in  the  morals  and  hab 
its,  which  had  previously  characterized  the  bulk  of  the  inhabi 
tants  of  this  country.  The  coined  and  crowded  state  of  man 
ufactories  has  a  decided  tendency  to  shorten  the  average  dura 
tion  of  human  life,  and  to  corrupt  the  feelings  of  the  workmen 
employed  in  them  ;  we  therefore  doubt  whether  tmy  augmenta 
tion  of  profit  to  be  expected  from  a  great  extension  of  ouv  man 
ufacturing  system  would,  in  the  eye  of  an  intelligent  and  humane, 
legislator,  compensate  for  the  moral  and  social  evils  unavoida 
bly  connected  with  it." 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON    ON  THE    EVILS  OF  AMERICAN   MANUFAC 
TURES. 

"The  political  economists  of  Europe,  have  established  it  as  a 
principle,  that  every  State  should  endeavor  to  manufacture  for  it 
self;  and  this  principle,  like  many  others,  we  transfer  to  America, 
without  calculating  the  difference  of  circumstance,  which  should 
often  produce  a  difference  of  result.  In  Europe,  the  lands  are 
either  cultivated,  or  locked  up  against  the  cultivator.  Manufac 
ture  must,  therefore,  be  resorted  to  from  necessity,  not  of  choice, 
to  support  the  surplus  of  their  people.  But  we  have  an  immen 
sity  of  land,  courting  the  industry  of  the  husbandman.  Is  it  best, 
then,  that  all  our  citizens  should  be  employed  in  its  improve 
ment,  or,  that  one-half  should  be  called  off  from  that,  to  exercise 
manufactures,  and  handicraft  arts  for  the  other.  Those  who 
labor  in  the  earth  are  the  chosen  people  of  God,  (if  ever  lie  had 
a  chosen  people,)  whose  breasts  He  has  made  his  peculiar  deposit 
for  substantial  and  genuine  virtue.  It  is  the  focus  in  which  He 
keeps  alive  that  sacred  fire,  which,  otherwise,  might  escape  from 
the  face  of  the  earth.  Corruption  of  morals,  in  the  mass  of  cul 
tivators,  is  a  phenomenon,  of  which  no  age  nor  nation  has  fur- 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  489 

nished  an  example.  It  is  the  mark  set  on  those  who  are  not 
looking  tip  to  heaven,  to  their  own  soil,  and  industry,  as  does  the 
husbandman,  for  their  subsistance  depend  for  it  on  casualties 
and  caprice  of  customers.  Dependence  begets  subservience,  and 
venality  suffocates  the  germ  of  virtue,  and  prepares  fit  tools  for 
the  designs  of  ambition.  Thus,  the  natural  progress  and  conse 
quence  of  the  arts,  has  sometimes  been  retarded  by  accidental 
circumstances  ;  but,  generally  speaking,  the  proportion  which  the 
aggregate  of  the  other  classes  of  citizens  bear,  in  any  state  to 
that  of  its  husbandmen,  is  the  proportion  of  its  unsound  to  its 
healthy  parts,  and  is  a  good  enough  barometer  whereby  to  meas 
ure  its  degree  of  corruption.  While  we  have  land  to  labor,  then, 
let  us  never  wish  to  see  our  citizens  occupied  at  a  work-bench,  or 
twirling  a  distaff;  carpenters,  masons,  smiths,  are  wanting  in 
husbandry,  but,  for  the  general  operations  of  manufacture,  let 
our  workshops  remain  in  Europe.  It  is  better  to  carry  provis 
ions  and  materials  to  workmen  there,  than  bring  -them  to  the 
provisions  and  materials  and,  with  them,  their  manners  and 
principles.  The  loss  by  the  transportation  of  commodities  across 
the  Atlantic,  will  be  made  up  in  happiness  and  permanence  of 
government.  The  mobs  of  great  cities  add  just  so  much  to  the 
support  of  pure  government,  as  sores  do  to  the  strength  of  the 
human  body.  It  is  the  manners  and  spirit  of  a  people  which 
preserve  a  republic  in  vigor  ;  a  degeneracy  in  these,  is  a  canker 
soon  eats  to  the  heart  of  its  laws  and  constitution." 


THr.   DISTINCTIONS   BETWEEN   THE  RICH  AND  THE  POOR. 

How  si^wly  have  we  advanced  in  that  progressive  civilization 
which  destroys  the  castes  of  poverty  and  wealth,  to  establish  on 
firm  foundations  the  just  distinction  between  virtue  and  vice, 
ignorance  and  knowledge,  coarseness  and  culture.  When  we 
contemplate  the  great  and  perpetually  deepening  and  widening 
chasm  which,  by  wicked  men,  is  kept  up  between  the  rich  and 
poor  "  in  the  earth,  which  is  the  Lord's,  with  the  fulness  thereof, 
and  all  that  dwell  therein/'  where  all  were  created  in  his  image, 
and  heirs  of  his  heritage,  we  are  startled  at  our  own  crimes. 

The  distinction  begins  in  the  cradle,  and  travels  slowly  to  the 
grave,  keeping  regular  step  to  the  mournful  music  of  the  op 
pressed,  whose  quiet  songs  come  up  from  the  deep-toned  strings 
of  a  broken  heart,  and  die  out  unheard  in  the  hovel  and  garret, 
each  step  marking  the  haughty  march  of  the  oppressor. 


490  CRIMES  OP  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

The  child  of  the  poor,  breasting  the  storm  in  thin  raiment ;  the 
child  of  the  rich,  dressed  in  purple  and  fine  linen. 

The  poor  live  in  open  cabins,  the  rich  in  splendid  mansions. 
The  poor  man's  child  eats  coarse  food  on  rough  tables,  the  rich 
man's  child  "  fares  sumptuously  every  day." 

The  poor  man's  child  struggles  with  ignorance,  though  his 
immortal  mind  is  a  burning  diamond  hid  in  the  rubbish  of  pov 
erty,  groping  in  darkness  for  an  aperture  to  emit  its  brilliant 
light,  which  will  shine  long  after  the  fires  of  the  sun  have  died 
out. 

The  rich  man's  stupid  child,  surrounded  by  a  troop  of  pro 
fessors,  is  dragged  and  driven  through  the  rugged  road  of  the 
classics,  to  the  altar  of  the  Alma  Mater,  with  as  vivid  a  view  of 
its  wealth  and  beauty,  as  the  prisoner  has  of  the  romantic  scenery 
of  the  Alps  or  Alleghenies,  through  which  he  has  been  hurried 
blindfolded,  and  in  broken  trips,  in  the  dead  of  night. 

At  the  holy  altar  of  marriage,  the  poor  man  takes  his  poorer 
bride  as  a  companion  to  travel  through  the  dismal  road  of  fac 
tory  life,  each  day,  to  deliver  at  night  the  profits  of  his  wages 
to  the  manufacturing  lord,  retaining  only  the  scanty  pittance  to 
strengthen  him  to  add  new  tribute  to  his  master's  treasury. 

The  rich  man  marries  one  richer  than  himself,  that  he  m*y 
rise  one  step  higher,  as  he  tramples  down  the  poor  one  step  kwer. 
Each  day  he  receives  the  wages  of  his  machinery,  the  piv>fits  of 
his  hired  hands,  the  tariff  upon  goods,  the  rents  upon  Jands,  the 
usury  upon  monies,  the  dividends  of  banks,  the  revenue  from 
railroads,  and  the  income  of  estates;  to  add  new  tasks  to  his  hire 
lings,  increased  power  to  his  machinery,  higher  tariffs  upon  his 
goods,  advanced  rents  upon  his  houses  and  lands,  higher  rates 
of  usury  upon  his  monies,  greater  dividends  upon  his  banks, 
larger  revenues  from  his  railroads,  appreciating  incomes  from 
his  estates. 

When  sickness  comes  to  the  poor  man's  cabin,  the  nostrums 
of  the  country  store,  are  his  only  remedy,  if  perchance  he  may 
spare  money  from  the  mouths  of  his  children  to  buy  them. 

The  rich  man  commands  the  greatest  medical  skill  of  the  land, 
which  is  brought  to  his  aid. 

When  the  poor  man  dies,  encircled  by  his  humble  friends,  he 


CEIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAK.  491 

is  soon  forgotten  by  the  world.  He  is -quietly  laid  in  his  grave 
under  the  shadow  of  the  forest  oak,  which  is  bathed  with  the 
honest  tears  of  his  orphan  children,  left  destitute,  to  travel  alone 
over  the  same  rough  road  which  he  has  forsaken  gladly.  When 
the  insatiate  grave  has  claimed  its  own,  the  spring  birds  warble 
the  funeral  service ;  the  wild  eglantine  grows  upon  his  grave ; 
his  body  has  gone  quietly  to  the  earth,  and  his  spirit  to  the  God 
who  gave  it. 

Or  perchance  a  friendless  pauper,  whose  end  is  described  in 
Thomas  Noell's 

PAUPER'S   DRIVE. 

"  There's  a  grim  one  horse  hearse  in  a  jolly  round  trot, 
To  the  church-yard  a  pauper  is  going,  I  wot. 
The  road  it  is  rough,  and  the  hearse  has  no  springs, 
And  hark  to  the  dirge  that  the  sad  driver  sings, 
"  Rattle  his  bones  over  the  stones 
He's  only  a  pauper  whom  nobody  owns." 

Oh  where  are  the  mourners  ?    Alas !  there  are  none  i 
He  has  left  not  a  gap  in  the  world,  now  he's  gone, 
Not  a  tear  in  the  eye  of  child,  woman,  or  man. 
To  the  grave  with  his  carcass  as  fast  as  you  can. 
"  Rattle  his  bones  over  the  stones, 
He's  only  a  pauper  whom  nobody  owns." 

What  a  jolting,  and  cracking,  and  splashing,  and  din, 
The  whip  how  it  cracks,  the  wheels  how  they  spin, 
How  the  dirt  right  and  left  o'er  the  hedges  is  hurled. 
The  Pauper  at  length  makes  a  noise  in  the  world. 
"  Rattle  his  bones  over  the  stones, 
He's  only  a  pauper  whom  nobody  owns." 

Poor  pauper  defunct,  he  has  made  some  approach 
To  gentility,  now  that  he's  stretched  on  a  coach. 
He's  taking  a  drive  in  his  carriage  at  last, 
But  it  will  not  be  long,  if  he  goes  on  so  fast. 
"  Rattle  his  bones  over  the  stones, 
He's  only  a  pauper  whom  nobody  owns." 

But  a  truce  to  this  strain,  for  my  soul  it  is  sad 

To  think  that  a  heart  in  humanity  clad, 

Should  make,  like  the  brute,  such  a  desolate  end, 

And  depart  from  the  light  without  leaving  a  friend. 
Bear  softly  his  bones  over  the  stones, 
Though  a  pauper,  he's  one  whom  his  Maker  yet  owns." 

"  The  rich  man  also  died,  and  in  hell  he  lifted  up  his  eyes." 
His  body  is  robed  in  grandeur,  dead  though  he  be.  He  is  fol 
lowed  to  the  tomb  by  the  bankers,  brokers,  lawyers,  merchants, 
and  physicians,  and  reverend  clergy,  who  participated  in  his 


492  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

luxury,  were  partners  in  his  enjoyments,  cured  his  maladies,  de 
fended  his  crimes,  and  gave  ecclesiastical  condolence  to  his  last 
hours. 

As  though  God  were  mocked  and  Heaven  could  be  hoodwinked, 
the  pageantry  is  kept  up  until  disgusted  human  nature  sickens 
in  contemplation.  The  body  of  the  rich  man,  putrid  with  vo 
luptuous  living,  scarcely  sinks  to  the  vault  in  which  it  is  hid 
from  mortal  eyes,  until  the  worms  commence  their  feast  in  fight 
ing  for  the  most  delicious  morsels  of  his  body.  His  children 
enter  chancery  suits  for  the  possession  of  his  estates.  To  per 
petuate  the  revelry,  the  furious  devils  keep  up  the  infernal  har 
mony,  contending  for  dominion  of  his  soul. 

The  distinction  is  perpetuated  beyond  the  grave.  The  rich 
man  is  careful  in  his  will  to  provide  for  his  memory.  True,  he 
grasped  everything  within  his  reach,  robbed  the  government, 
cheated  the  ignorant,  beat  God's  people,  ground  the  faces  of 
the  poor,  amassed  a  fortune  which  bore  the  expenses  of  his  fam 
ily  magnificently  to  ruin.  Yet  notwithstanding,  the  well-paid 
clergyman  chants  his  praises  as  a  saint  of  light.  On  the  most 
beautiful  spot  in  the  consecrated  cemetery,  a  monument  is  reared 
to  his  memory,  to  delude  the  world.  On  that  monument  should 
be  written :  Sacred  to  the  memory  of  Dives,  the  manufacturing 
Prince,  who  lived  in  a  palatial  mansion,  travelled  with  his  splen 
did  retinue  in  oriental  grandeur,  reveled  in  opulence ;  died  as  he 
lived,  surrounded  by  servile  flatterers,  was  laid  out  in  state,  the 
expenses  of  all  of  which  was  borne  by  the  suffering  poor,  who  gave 
at  least  one-half  of  all  they  should  have  ate  and  worn,  as  a 
tribute  to  his  dazzling  glory. 


CHIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL    WAK.       ,  493 


CRIMES  OF  DESPOTISM. , 

CHAPTEE  I. 

THE  CURSE  OF  THE  DEBT  GREATER  THAN  THE  DEBT  ITSELF. 

THE  burdens  of  taxation,  consequent  upon  the  Federal  debt, 
are  but  its  smallest  evils  subsequent. 

The  very  nature  of  this  debt  requires  the  appliances  of  des 
potism  for  its  collection. 

1.  To  secure  the  debt,  labor  must  be  kept  in  subjection  to 
capital,  so  that  no  mere  freak  of  liberty  may  work  out  the  enian- 
cipation  of  the  people,  and  no  perad venture  shall  allow  failure  to 
intervene. 

2.  The  process  is  simple.     Just  disfranchise  the  men  of  prop 
erty,  and  enfranchise  those  negroes  who  have  none;  confiscate 
the  property  of  the  rich  land-holders,  and  divide  up  their  lands 
among  vagabonds ;  then  issue  a  proclamation,  that  every  man  is 
a  criminal  who  owns  $20,000,  and  does  not  purchase  or  procure  a 
pardon. 

3.  The  proposition  is  simplified  by  allowing  the  creatures  and 
instruments  of  the  bondholders,  who  have  no  property,  to  vote 
away  the  property  of  others. 

4.  Then  suffer  none  to  fill  offices  of  trust,  profit,  or  power,  ex 
cept  the  tools  of  monopolies ;  and  exclude  all  of  known  ability, 
or  integrity  of  character. 

5.  To  complete  the  degradation  of  the  people  and  enforce  these 
odious  measures,  prescribe  test  oaths,  which  scandalize  civiliza 
tion,  and  thereby  get  rid  of  the  opposition  to  the  payment  of  the 
bonds. 

6.  Engraft  an  amendment  upon  the  Constitution,  which  makes 
this  unconstitutional,  illegal,  unjust,  and  cruel  debt  a  primary 


494 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 


part  of  the  government,  so  that  every  member  of  Congress 
must  swear  to  support  it,  and  be  estopped  from  uttering  one 
word  against  it,  or  be  expelled  for  proposing  its  abrogation  in 
any  form. 

7.  The  suffrage  of  negroes  and  Chinese,  and  a  mercenary  sol 
diery,  would  be  requisite  to  sustain  higher  tariffs,  excessive 
taxation,  and  extend  a  surer  guaranty  to  bondholders. 

Everybody  now  understands  that  it  is  the  settled  purpose  of 
the  mongrel  party  to  adopt  the  following  measures: 

1.  Negro  voting  in  every  State  in  the  Union. 

2.  A  standing  army  in  every  Congressional  district. 

3.  The  conscription  systems    of  Europe   for   filling   up  the 
army. 

4.  The  general  confiscation  of  property  of  the  Southern  peo 
ple. 

5.  The  division  of  the  lands  among  the  negroes. 

6.  Arming  the  negroes  as  soldiers,  and  mingling  them  among 
the  whites,  all  of  which  is  to  be  done  to  secure  the  negro  vote  of 
the  Southern  States. 

But  these  measures  are  mere  instrumentalities  preparatory  and 
subservient  to  the  higher  purpose  of  these  monsters  of  cruelty 
and  crime,  to  establish  as  permanent  institutions  of  the  govern 
ment: 

1.  The  British  funded  system. 

2.  Banking  systems  and  stock-gambling. 

3.  Tariffs  to  support  manufacturers,  by  starving  and  freezing 
the  poor. 

4.  An  army  of  tax-gatherers  to  corrupt  the  elective  franchise, 
and  keep  the  people  in  surveillance. 

All  these  things  are  necessary  to  be  done,  that  this  funding 
system  may  be  fastened  as  a  fixture,  and  transmitted  as  an  in 
heritance  upon  the  country,  untaxed  and  appreciating  in  value 
and  amount.  The  machinery  for  this  purpose,  is  now  being  test 
ed  in  the  enforcement  of  the  reconstruction  military  govern 
ments  in  the  South,  to  prepare  for  its  enforcement  in  every  part 
of  the  Northern  States.  The  very  worst  elements  of  society 
now  in  communities,  and  the  loosest  driftwood  which  sweeps  by 
in  the  flood-tides  of  emigration,  from  North  to  South,  under  the 


CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  495 

auspices  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  will  be  added  tc  the  voting 
strength  of  the  country,  whose  government  is  administered  as  a 
pretext  for  the  robbery  of  the  people. 

Already  highwaymen  and  convicts,  of  States  prisons,  made 
the  executioners  of  laws  too  infamous  to  be  enforced  by  good 
men. 

MILITARY    SATRAPS. 

Experience  has  given  to  history  this  one  truth,  which  will 
never  change  its  force  among  men ;  that  funded  debts  and  stand 
ing  armies  will  enslave  any  people.  These  evils  are  inseparable. 
A  standing  army  will  necessitate  a  funding  debt,  to  support  it ; 
and  a  funding  debt  will  require  a  standing  army  to  collect  it. 

No  sooner  was  the  funding  system  fairly  adopted,  than  the 
cunning  stock-gamblers  were  on  the  alert,  and  provided  the  mili 
tary  scheme,  now  in  operation,  for  the  government  of  the  people 
without  law,  by  the  arbitrary  will  of  military  governors,  of 
nameless  odium. 

In  one  case,  a  debauchee,  whose  life  has  been  equalized  only 
by  his  amours,  murders,  and  infamy — suspends  courts,  decides  the 
titles  of  estates,  and  holds  the  lives  of  the  people  in  his  hand,  to 
be  disposed  of  at  will. 

In  another,  a  blustering  military  pretender,  who  lost  his  army, 
commissary  stores,  parade  coat,  and  commission ;  a  drunkard,  a 
loafer,  and  braggart,  is  now  playing  military  governor  and  tyrant, 
conquering  women  and  children,  and  associating,  in  disgusting 
familiarity,  with  abandoned  negroes. 

This  nameless  crime  against  civilization,  of  placing  barbarians 
over  cultivated  gentlemen  ;  crime  against  Christianity,  in  placing 
heathen  over  Christians ;  against  human  nature,  in  placing  the 
most  loathesome  of  all  the  family  of  man  over  the  most  highly 
refined  of  the  Caucasian  race,  is  but  an  offspring  of  this  villain 
ous  funding  system. 

History  affords  neither  precedent  nor  parallel,  for  the  attempt 
to  place  the  vagabond  rabble  in  the  government  of  a  country, 
over  her  refined  and  able  men. 

The  decent  people  still  exercise  a  limited  liberty  of  speech, 
under  duress.  The  right  of  free  speech  is  gone ;  liberty  of  the 


496  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAE. 

press  lias  been  suppressed  by  usurpation.     They  now  exercise 
their  freedom  at  their  peril.     They  enjoy  precisely  the  same  lib 
erties  which  are  occasionally  indulged  in  Spain,  Austria,  France^ 
and  Eussia,  by  the  indifference  of  the  tyrants  or  the  utter  pusil 
lanimity  of  the  people,  who  are  so  habitually  stupefied  by  con 
stant  submission  to  the  debasing  yoke,  that  they  are  no  longer 
sensible  to  the  indignities  perpetrated  upon  their  rights  and  per 
sons.     Under  the  horror  in  which  they  live,  the  common  law 
of  our  degradation  assures  us  that  they  hold  their  liberties  at  the 
mercy  of  the  tyrants  who  bear  sway  over  them  ;  that  all  that 
has  been  done  is  lawful,  and  may  therefore  be  done  again,  as  it 
was  done  before.     The  only  guarantee  left  them,  is  that  which 
they  may   have   in  revolution.     Constitutional    liberty  in   the 
United  States  is  the  footstool  of  tyrants,  by  which  they  clamber 
to  power.     The  Constitution  is  made  the  merest  pretext  by  which 
office  and  authority  are  assumed  ;  but  the  most  flimsy  apology 
for  the  protection  of  the  people  against  the  invasions  of  their 
rights.     The  Constitution  is  virtually  repealed ;  those  sworn  to 
protect  and  defend  it,  make  it  the  subject  of  ridicule.     The  great 
law  of  the  majorities,  is  just  as  feeble  to  interpose  its  power  for 
our  protection,  as  the  Constitution  heretofore  has  been.     It  was 
the  minority  that  overturned  the  Constitution,  in  defiance  of  the 
majority,  and  has  systematically  proceeded  to  destroy  all  gov 
ernment.     We  are  living  under  a  usurpation  of  manifold  atro 
city.     Those  claiming  authority  over  us  are  usurpers.     A  usurp 
er  is  one  who  takes  from  the  people  their  rights.     This  is  the 
highest  signification  of  the  term.     There  may  be  many,  as  well 
as  one  usurper.     The  style  of  tyranny  now  employed  to  control 
the  people,  is  the  most   thorough,   complete,  and   complicated 
usurpation  that  was  ever  employed  to  rule  or  destroy  liberty  in 
any  country.     The  preliminary  measures  by  which  power  was 
attained,  were  simple  usurpations.     The  elections  were  usurpa 
tions  in  all  of  their  varied  machinery.     The  disfranchisement 
was  a  usurpation,  for  no  citizen  may  be  divested   of  any  right, 
without  first  having  forfeited  it  by  due  process  of  law.     But  dis 
franchisement  has  been  the  essence  of  their  elections  —  disfran 
chisement,  without  trial,  without  arrest,  simply  by  sweeping 
legislation. 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  497 

The  satrapy  was  a  necessity  to  the  destruction  of  liberty,  and 
doubly  necessary  to  the  disfranchisement  of  the  whites,  and  the 
enfranchisement  of  the  negroes. 

But  this  army  must  be  perpetuated  and  strengthened,  to  en 
force  the  crazy  schemes  and  unnatural  system  of  government  con 
templated. 

Language  is  too  feeble  to  describe,  and  credulity  too  faint,  to 
apprehend  the  real  condition  of  the  government,  and  outrage  im 
posed  upon  the  people  of  the  satrapys. 

Counterfeiters,  against  whom  indictments  lay  unsatisfied ;  mur 
derers,  dripping  with  innocent  blood,  who  escaped  the  gibbet's 
noose  by  the  pardoning  grace  of  generous  Governors,  are  control- 
ing  legislative  assemblies. 

But  this  is  an  essential  part  of  the  machinery  necessary  to  carry 
out  this  carefully  adjusted  system  of  public  robbery,  and  will  be 
amplified  as  necessity  demands. 

What  apology  can  we  offer  for  the  governments  of  West  Vir 
ginia,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri?  Nothing  but  that  they  are 
necessary  to  protect  the  interest  of  the  funding  debt,  the  monop 
olists,  and  money  oligarchy,  based  upon  the  bonds.  These  are, 
moreover,  the  model  governments  now  on  trial,  to  be  made  gen 
eral  as  the  debt  requires  it. 

Such  is  the  varied  suffering,  crime  and  oppression  inflicted 
upon  the  people  by  the  satrapys,  that  the  subjugation  of  Ireland,  the 
butchery  of  Hungarians  by  Haynau,  and  the  slaughter  of  Poles 
by  the  Russian  despots,  will  be  forgotten  in  the  recital  of  the 
fiendish  barbarities  practiced  by  northern  armies,  government 
agents,  and  the  freedman's  bureau,  upon  the  whites  arid  blacks  of 
the  Southern  States.  It  will  add  no  argument  to  the  general 
plea,  that  the  Russian  and  American  despots  sought  alliance  and 
interchanged  civilities.  This  was  but  natural,  that  a  semi-civ- 

o  ' 

ilized  despot,  who  holds  his  people  at  his  will,  should  congratu 
late  a  cotemporary  tyrant  upon  the  abrogation  and  overthrow  of 
all  constitutional  restrictions  upon  absolute  power. 

But  it  will  be  the  marvel  of  all  history,  that  the  attempt  was 

made  to  tax  a  people  for  their  own  degradation,  demanding  the 

remaining  tenth  for  burning  the  nine-tenths  of  all  they  had  ; 

after  destroying  their  implements  of  labor,  driving  thousands 

32 


498  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

of  helpless  women  into  exile  in  a  foreign  land,  exacting  the  pro 
duct  of  the  naked  lands,  destroying  medicines  and  food,  putting 
men  to  death  for  failing  to  minister  to  the  sick,  and  feed  the 
hungry.  The  funding  system  created  by  the  civil  war,  ends  in  a 
slavery  infinitely  more  intolerable  than  that  which  was  proposed 
to  be  destroyed  by  it. 

All  of  the  invasions  of  liberty  known  to  conquerers,  have  been 
made  upon  the  American  people. 

All  of  the  outrages  peculiar  to  spiteful  tyrants,  have  been  re 
peated  among  us.  All  of  the  deceptions  common  to  cruel  des 
pots,  have  been  perpetrated  with  a  jocular  glee,  that  makes  us 
shudder.  The  horrors  of  war,  the  miseries  of  bankruptcy,  the 
murder  of  women,  degradation  of  men,  and  destruction  of  gov 
ernment  goes  on,  still  the  criminals  hold  up  their  heads  and  boast 
of  prosperity,  and  aspire  to  continue  their  rule  in  the  land.  Such 
is  the  deceit  of  wickedness,  and  such  are  the  delusions  of  crime 
when  committed  by  public  officers. 

In  the  exhaustless  ingenuity  of  tyranny  to  perpetuate  itself, 
it  will  riot  in  the  vitals  of  its  victim,  until  wasted  strength  is 
followed  by  the  feverish  delirium,  and  delirium  is  quickly  suc 
ceeded  by  death.  The  hectic  flush  that  paints  the  cheek  of  the 
breathing  corpse,  is  readily  mistaken  for  the  opening  bloom  of 
health.  The  fiery  cancer  which  is  slowly  devouring  the  organs 
of  health,  lies  hid  in  life's  secret  chambers,  and  laps  the  blood 
that  warms  the  heart;  whilst  the  victim  revels  in  luxury,  un 
conscious  of  danger,  until  he  awakens  from  his  dreams  in  the 
jaws  of  death. 

The  feverish  prosperity  created  by  artificial  wealth,  is  the  na 
tural  prelude  of  general  bankruptcy. 

The  cancer  of  despotism,  concealed  under  the  alluring  name 
of  liberty,  has  eaten  out  the  vitals  of  our  institutions,  and  left 
us  powerless. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR.  499 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  TAX-GATHERER. 

THE  tax-gatherer  is  the  chief  personage  of  the  funding  sys 
tem,  who,  at  the  cheapest  wages,  performs  the  most  offensive  ser 
vice  in  the  rudest  manner.  He  is  generally  chosen  for  his  want 
of  feeling  and  insolence  in  the  common  walks  of  life.  He 
wrenches  alike  from  widow  and  orphan,  from  puling  childhood 
and  decrepit  age.  His  wide  range  of  discretionary  plunder  in 
cludes  stamps,  incomes,  licenses,  and  excises.  He  demands  a 
moiety  of  the  coal  that  warms  the  shivering  body,  the  match 
that  kindles  the  fire,  the  bread  that  feeds  the  tottering  frame,  the 
raiment  that  hides  the  feeble  limbs,  and  the  medicines  that  kind 
ly  come  to  pour  their  oil  into  the  wasting  lamp  of  life,  —  to 
everything  which  relentless  nature  has  imposed  as  a  necessity 
upon  our  being. 

This  unpopular  appendage  of  all  bad  governments  ;  the  pes 
tilential  scourge  of  monarchies,  almost  unknown  to  us,  is  now  an 
embellishment  in  the  hideous  picture  of  the  bloody  times. 

The  Federal  tax-gatherer,  a  trespasser  upon  liberty,  unknown 
to  our  forefathers,  who  sat  smoking  their  pipes  beside  their  log- 
heap  fires,  while  they  told  the  simple  story  of  freedom  to  their 
children's  children.  The  oldest  living  men  had  never  seen  this 
plague  of  Egyptian  frogs,  locusts  and  lice  combined,  except  in 
the  brief  sojourn  of  the  excise.  In  western  Pennsylvania,  the 
proud  yeomanry,  to  resist  the  excise,  raised  up  against  the  Father 
of  his  Country,  and  it  was  the  crowning  act  of  the  life  of  the 
great  Washington,  to  urge  its  early  repeal. 

But  this  sentinel  of  Puritanism  (the  Publican)  can  be  seen 
at  every  corner  of  the  street.  His  office  is  put  in  the  most 
prominent  places  in  your  cities,  around  your  court-houses,  in 


500  CEIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

your  towns,  his  subs,  and  deputies  and  spies,  and  pimps,  and 
detectives,  his  countless  retinue,  are  quartered  upon  the  public. 
They  employ  paper  mills  and  printing-presses,  to  keep  their  ac 
counts  against  the  people,  armies  of  clerks  to  record  them,  and 
multitudes  to  go  out  and  gather  up  the  substance  of  the  land, 
distilled  from  the  sweat  of  the  brow  of  the  yeomanry. 

This  gentleman  still  pays  his  periodical  visits  to  your  houses ; 
peering  into  your  garden,  to  see  what  you  raise ;  poking  his  nose 
into  your  pots,  to  smell  what  you  eat ;  prying  into  your  ward 
robes,  to  see  what  you  wear.  He  is  not  satisfied  with  mere  ob 
servations.  Lest  something  should  escape  his  espionage,  he 
swears  you  upon  the  Holy  Evangelist  to  search  your  heart,  and 
then  publishes  your  private  business  to  the  public  eye,  for  the 
double  purpose  of  inviting  the  usurer  to  take  advantage  of  your 
financial  condition,  and  call  in  your  mischief-making  neighbors 
to  turn  common  informer  upon  you.  Dr  Johnson  has  happily 
defined  these  men  —  "  EXCISE  :  hateful  tax  levied  upon  commodi 
ties,  and  adjudged  not  by  the  common  judges  of  property,  but 
wretches  hired  by  those  to  whom  excise  is  paid." 

li  With  hundred  rows  of  teeth  the  shark  exceeds, 
And  on  all  trades  like  Cassawar  she  feeds." — MANEL. 

"Hire  large  houses  and  oppress  the  poor 
By  farmed  excise." — DUYDEN. 

The  tax-gatherer  comes  with  the  stamp,  as  of  old  ;  your  business 
is  entrammeled  with  the  odious  stamp  —  the  hateful  badge  of 
that  galling  servitude  which  our  proud  fathers  scorned  to  place 
upon  their  deeds,  choosing  rather  to  let  their  contracts  and  con 
veyances  rest  upon  their  word  of  honor,  than  to  surrender  their 
right  to  dispose  of  private  property  or  transact  confidential  busi 
ness,  without  the  interference  of  the  government  espionage.  It 
was  the  long  cherished  pride  of  our  glorious  ancestors,  that  the 
unchallenged  power  of  George  III,  could  not  impose  upon  a 
free  people  a  system  which  conceded  their  abjection. 

This  system  of  unspeakable  oppression  has  become  universal 
and  unsparing.  These  hungry  task-masters  come  down  upon 
you  like  a  wolf  on  the  fold.  They  stamp  your  deeds ;  stamp 
your  affidavits;  stamp  your  agreements  and  appraisements; 


CEIMES  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR.  501 

stamp  your  assignments ;  stamp  your  bank-checks  and  bills  of 
exchange ;  stamp  your  bills  of  lading  and  bills  of  sale ;  stamp 
your  bonds ;  stamp  your  cards ;  stamp  your  certificates  of  loan, 
certificates  of  deposit,  certificates  of  stock,  certificates  of  profit, 
certificates  of  record,  certificates  of  weight,  certificates  of  every 
kind,  certified  transcripts ;  stamp  your  charters ;  stamp  your 
clearances ;  stamp  your  contracts ;  stamp  your  conveyances ; 
stamp  your  entries ;  stamp  your  insurances ;  stamp  your  leases ; 
stamp  your  legal  documents,  your  letters  of  credit,  and  letters 
of  administration;  stamp  your  manifests;  stamp  your  mort 
gages  ;  stamp  your  pension  papers  and  passage  tickets ;  stamp 
your  matches;  stamp  your  cigars;  stamp  your  medicines, 
your  perfumeries,  cosmetics ;  stamp  your  powers  of  attorney ; 
stamp  your  photographs :  stamp  your  probates  of  will,  your 
bonds  of  executors,  letters  of  appointment,  certificates  of  ap 
pointment  ;  stamp  your  protests  and  promissory  notes ;  stamp 
your  quit  claim  deeds,  releases  and  discharges;  stamp  your 
receipts  ;  stamp  your  returns ;  stamp  your  deeds  of  trust ;  stamp 
the  varied  contents  of  your  warehouses. 

The  widow,  sheltered  in  her  shanty,  standing  by  the  bedside 
of  her  dying  child,  is  not  permitted  to  light  her  lamp,  until  she 
pays  for  the  stamp  imposed  upon  the  matches;  nor  can  she  ad 
minister  the  medicine,  until  she  has  paid  for  the  stamp  upon  the 
phial  or  box  containing  it.  The  photograph  of  your  dead  wife, 
or  mother,  or  sister,  or  daughter,  or  that  of  the  Immaculate 
Saviour  of  mankind,  must  be  defaced  with  the  vulgar  picture  of 
the  sinister  countenance  of  some  vain-glorious  plundering  tyrant, 
who,  not  content  with  robbing  the  laboring  masses,  thrusts 
his  indecent  presence  upon  your  attention,  in  the  moments  of 
your  most  sacred  devotion,  or  in  the  more  sacred  chamber  of 
your  grief. 

The  tax-gatherer  is  a  toll-dish"upon  the  food,  as  a  sponge-cloth 
upon  the  raiment  of  the  laboring  masses,  to  enrich  the  opulent. 
The  income  tax  enslaves  your  productions ;  and,  in  the  wealth 
of  their  mercenary  ingenuity,  all  the  means  devised  by  the  in 
finite  resources  of  despotism  and  fraud,  have  failed  to  meet  the 
growing  demands  of  the  fathomless  debt,  which  will  bind  in 
chains  the  progressive  industry  of  the  unborn  generation  of  our 
race. 


502  CEIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

The  business  of  these  tax-gatherers  is  even  more  detestable, 
when  we  remember  the  purposes  for  which  the  money  is  collected. 
This  universal  scourge  of  nations  is  now  omnipresent. 

He  perambulates  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  searching  among  the 
ruins  of  the  old  and  magnificent  mansions,  for  the  taxes  upon 
what  has  been  left.  He  adds  to  the  unremunerative  toil  of  tax- 
gatherer,  the  benevolent  mission  of  colporteur,  and  sells  the  pho 
tograph  of  Philip  Sheridan,  with  the  panoramic  scenes  of  the 
burning  valley,  embellished  with  the  report  of  his  campaign 
among  the  defenceless  women  and  children,  emblazoned  in  capi 
tal  letters :  — • 

"I  HAVE  DESTROYED  OVER  TWO  THOUSAND  BARNS,  FILLED 
WITH  WHEAT,  AND  HAY,  AND  FARMING  IMPLEMENTS;  OVER 
SEVENTY  MILLS,  FILLED  WITH  FLOUR,  AND  WHEAT;  ALL  OF 
THE  HOUSES  WITHIN  AN  AREA  OF  FIVE  MILES,  WERE  BURNED." 

—  P.  H.  Sheridan,  &c. 

These  pictures  will  stir  up  the  smouldering  fires  of  a  glorious 
manhood,  smothered,  but  still  alive. 

The  women,  poor,  but  proud  as  on  the  day  when  the  monster 
trod  their  sacred  hearths  as  a  scourge  of  darkness,  will  not  cheer 
fully  give  the  fruits  of  their  labor  to  pay  the  remaining  debt  in 
curred  in  their  destruction.  Time  will  not  improve  the  temper 
of  their  children,  growing  into  manhood,  who  hear  the  thrilling 
story  from  the  mother's  lips,  of  their  absent  father,  whose  smiling 
face  they  barely  recollect,  as  disappearing  in  the  smoke  of  their 
burning  homes. 

The  tax-gatherer  in  the  invaded  States,  who  has  been  ostler  or 
hangman  in  the  North,  whence  he  has  been  expelled  as  the  de 
bris  of  society,  will,  with  his  venal  hirelings,  enter  upon  their 
duty  in  Lexington,  Virginia,  which  distant  generations  will  ven 
erate,  as  the  home  and  tomb  of  the  immortal  Jackson. 

Amid  the  scenes  where  fiends,  invested  with  the  human  form, 
gloated  their  eyes  with  the  lurid  glare  of  burning  villas,  feasted 
their  ears  with  the  shrieks  of  the  aged  and  infirm,  struggling 
to  escape  the  consuming  fire,  like  satyrs  dressed  in  military 
costume,  danced  upon  the  ashes  of  libraries,  bestowed  by  states- 


CRIMES   OF   THE  CIVIL   WAK.  503 

men,  philosophers,  jurists,  warriors  and  divines,  as  keepsakes 
of  liberty. 

Nor  will  the  impudence  of  the  versatile  collector  be  in  the  least 
abashed,  to  bear  with  him  the  life-sized  likeness  of  the  idiot 
Hunter,  who  left  in  flames  the  cottage  that  gave  him  shelter  in 
childhood,  burned  the  house  in  which  he  was  born,  and  desolated 
the  home  of  the  negro  nurse  who  gave  him  suck ;  insatiate  with 
hate,  driven  from  his  pillage  with  inferior  force,  strewing  his 
march  with  the  starving,  wounded,  and  dead,  that  fell  victims 
to  his  imbecile  cruelty. 

The  tax-gatherer  will  grow  merry,  when,  with  a  coarse  grin,  he 
assures  the  people  that  their  taxes  shall  be  appropriated  to  pay 
for  dismantling  the  monument  of  Washington,  and  leveling  in 
ashes  the  literary  institution  which  wore  his  name,  and  burning 
the  village  homes  of  women  and  children,  in  the  quiet  recesses 
of  the  mountain. 

This  government  menial  will  carry  his  business  and  espionage 
to  Columbia,  where  the  most  beautiful  inland  city  of  America 
stood  monumental  of  a  peerless  civilization. 

This  lovely  homo  of  a  prosperous  people  was  adorned  with 
statues,  paintings,  libraries,  institutions  of  public  charts,  spacious 
temples  of  the  living  God,  beautiful  edifices  reared  to  the  pro 
mulgation  of  learning,  science,  and  the  fine  arts,  rich  in  the  tro 
phies  of  a  revolution  which  had  secured  our  common  indepen 
dence;  their  archives  were  cherished  with  a  fond  devotion,  only 
less  precious  than  the  sepulchres  of  her  Pickneys,  Haynes, 
Lowndes,  Butlers,  Calhouns,  and  Hamptons. 

"Where  now  the  charred  trunk  of  the  magnolia  and  palmetto, 
mingle  their  withered  branches  with  the  smoky  columns  of 
ruined  streets  and  avenues,  laid  waste  by  barbarian  hordes,  will 
the  tax-gatherer  go,  to  sift  the  cinders,  like  an  Eastern  juggler, 
to  get  from  the  ashes,  the  tribute  due  his  government. 

To  amuse  himself,  and  terrify  the  people,  he  takes  the  biogra 
phy  and  portrait  of  Tecumseh  Sherman,  who  wore  not  in  vain, 
his  savage  patronymic,  in  his  march  of  desolation  from  the  great 
river  to  the  ocean.  He  will  explain  the  justice  of  taxation,  by 
exhibiting  Sherman's  correspondence  with  Wade  Hampton,  who 
defended  Columbia ;  whose  father,  Wade  Hampton,  defended  the 


504  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL    WAK. 

country  against  the  British,  in  1812;  whose  grandfather,  Wade 
Hampton,  fought  side  by  side  with  Henry  Lee,  in  the  old  revo 
lutionary  war.  These  memorials  would  remind  the  people  of 
the  precious  privileges  of  "the  best  government  the  world  ever 
saw"  stimulate  them  to  admiration  of  their  benefactor,  and  a 
cheerful  surrender  in  taxes,  what  has  escaped  the  general  conflag 
ration. 

The  tax-gatherer  suffers  no  conscientious  qualms  to  interfere 
with  the  faithful  execution  of  his  commands ;  no  difference  how 
repulsive  to  others,  or  to  nature,  his  offensive  task  may  be. 

In  Jackson,  the  taskmaster  of  the  people  will  search  for  his 
quota  of  levies  amid  the  ruins  of  the  capital ;  among  the  ashes  of 
archives,  evidences  of  property,  records  of  estate  upon  which 
helpless  widows  and  innocent  orphans  were  dependent  for  food 
and  raiment,  and  shelter,  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  conflag 
ration. 

The  publican  is  the  representative  of  the  new  nation  ;  he  will 
leave  nothing,  either  nefarious  or  odious,  undone.  He  will 
glean  the  fields  of  their  scattered  grain. 

He  will  carry  his  duplicate  into  every  business,  trade,  industry, 
and  inheritance. 

He  will  go  where  arbitrary  taxes  were  levied,  under  the 
shallow  pretence  of  assisting  the  government ;  but  for  the  real 
purpose  of  enriching  the  worst  and  weakest  usurpers,  by  robbing 
the  people. 

He  will  not  forget  St.  Louis,  where  furniture,  carpet?,  libra 
ries,  and  household  goods,  were  indiscriminately  seized,  and  dis 
tributed  among  pimps,  spies,  and  vagabonds,  who  loitered  around 
the  mock  Inilitary  heroes,  as  vultures  linger  around  the  putrid 
remains  of  an  effete  carcass. 

The  publican  will  congratulate  his  victims  upon  their  good 
fortune  in  escaping  so  well,  and  expect  their  gratitude,  that  the 
military  lords  had  not  chosen  to  chop  off  their  heads,  like  a 
French  cook  disposes  of  his  capons. 

The  tariff  does  its  work  so  handsomely  among  the  laboring 
masses,  that  other  taxation  would  be  superfluous  and  impossible. 

The  power  of  the  publican  is  the  plummet  which  sounds  the 
depths  of  our  financial  ruin,  and  hopeless  degradation.  He  will 


CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL   WAR.  505 

urge,  with  ferocious  pertinacity,  his  repulsive  errand,  until  the 
great  question  is  brought,  for  final  adjustment,  before  the  last 
great  court  of  popular  will. 

After  he  has  returned  from  his  Southern  tour,  he  can  commence 
his  peregrinations  among  the  unslaughtered,  of  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  who  were  driven  like  oxen  to  the  butchers'  stall, 
or  like  sheep  to  the  slaughter.  He  can  press  his  demand  upon  those 
whose  children  were  slain  like  wild  beasts — mercilessly  hurled 
before  breast-works,  and  trampled  down  like  dust — and  convince 
them,  if  he  can,  that  their  property  shall  be  mortgaged,  to  pay  the 
expenses  incident  to  their  degradation,  and  buy  the  chains  which 
are  forged  for  their  perpetual  slavery.  The  tax-gatherer  assumes 
an  elevation  of  character,  talks  exhaustless  logic,  and  stately 
rhetoric,  to  convince  the  people  that  the  highest  purpose  of  life 
is  to  enslave  themselves  by  taxation,  to  pay  incendiaries  for  burn 
ing  up  cities,  destroying  records,  and  wantonly  exterminating 
flocks  of  sheep,  herds  of  cattle,  droves  of  horses,  mules  and  hogs, 
and  carrying  on  a  war  in  their  midst;  compared  with  which  the 
desolations  of  Alva,  Alaric,  Timour,  and  Ghenghis,  were  mild 
and  gentle.  This  argument  will  be  repelled  by  the  homeless 
children  of  these  ruined  people ;  they  will  protest  against  the 
payment  of  these  taxes  upon  all  they  eat,  and  drink,  and  wear, 
to  pay  the  despoilers  of  their  homes. 

As  long  as  the  human  heart  can  moisten  the  emotions  of  re 
venge,  and  veneration  for  brave  and  martyred  ancestry  remains 
a  hallowed  instinct  of  exalted  human  nature,  the  children  and 
the  children's  children  of  the  desolate  country,  will  lift  up 
their  voices  to  the  God  of  Justice,  in  protest  against  the  pay 
ment  of  the  debt  made  in  the  overthrow  of  their  government ; 
laying  waste  their  country,  destroying  their  liberty,  butchering 
their  young  men,  insulting  their  old  men,  and  letting  loose  a 
degraded,  heathen  race,  led  by  a  mercenary  army,  upon  their 
women  and  children. 

The  tax-gatherers  in  a  subjugated  country  are  always  the 
worst  men.  Good  men  will  not  participate  in  the  robbery  of 
the  people,  and  avoid  such  offices. 

What  must  be  the  condition  of  a  country  governed  by  its 
worst  men,  who  use  their  wicked  power  to  perpetuate  itself. 


506  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

Nothing  but  force  can  perpetuate  such  government,  and  no 
thing  but  robbery  can  maintain  such  force. 

The  tax-gatherers7  government  is  but  an  adjunct  to  military 
dictation.  No  difference  which  precedes  the  other,  they  are 
mutually  supporting,  and  survive  or  perish  together. 


CHIMES  OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR.  507 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE    SPIES. 

WITH  the  other  vampyres  which  prey  upon  our  liberties,  are 
troops  of  private  spies  upon  the  business  and  opinions  of  men. 
Of  all  the  detestable  wretches  that  feed  upon  the  frailties,  follies, 
and  vices  of  the  people,  there  are  none  so  universally  loathed  as 
the  spy. 

As  far  back  as  military  history  and  science  found  enduring 
record,  the  spy  has  been  entitled  to  no  more  solemn  trial  than 
the  drum-head  court-martial,  or  no  more  dignified  mode  of  death 
than  the  halter. 

Even  noble  earls  and  kings  have  been  promptly  put  to  death 
for  the  crime  of  acting  as  spy. 

The  Earl  of  March,  in  1328,  was  impeached,  condemned  and 
executed  upon  these  two  charges  : — 

1.  That  he  seized  the  government  of  the  kingdom,  without 
authority,  and  contrary  to  the  express  decree  of  Parliament. 

2.  That  he  had  placed  spies  around  the  King's  person,  upon 
all  of  his  actions,  that  he  might  not  free  himself  from  them. 

King  Richard  II,  was  condemned  for  high  treason,  because  he 
kept  spies  upon  the  people,  to  Fpy  out  their  wealth  and  liberties, 
at  the  public  expense,  and  claiming  to  be  master  and  owner  of 
his  subjects'  estates. 

This  has  been  for  the  last  six  years,  a  government  of  spies. 
During  the  war,  they  were  crowded  into  public  houses,  hired  in 
kitchens,  eaves-dropping  in  parlors,  prowling  around  houses  of 
ill-fame.  In  citizen's  garb,  he  assumed  the  character  of  minis 
ter,  contractor,  or  politician,  cheating  the  government  out  of 
money,  and  imposing  upon  the  credulity  of  the  people. 

During  the  life-time  of  Lincoln,  he  kept  three  thousand  spies 
in  his  employment.  He  relied  entirely  upon  them  for  his  knowl 
edge  of  public  affairs.  But  the  system  of  spies  is  now  so  essen- 


508  CHIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL   WAK. 

tially  a  part  of  the  revenue  machinery,  that  each  assessor  and  col 
lector  has  his  spy  at  his  heels. 

This  infamous  vocation  has  become  a  remunerative  business, 
under  the  fostering  care  of  the  government,  as  a  part  of  the  sys 
tem  of  reform.  These  spies  hire  themselves  to  extortioners,  and 
speculators,  to  make  their  periodical  reports,  and  subject  every 
business  man  to  their  caprice,  either  to  be  ruined  by  their  malice, 
or  impoverished  by  their  black  mail. 

It  makes  infidels  of  us  all.  We  deny  what  we  see,  and  scarcely 
credit  our  senses  when  we  behold  these  things  among-  us:  that 
the  tyrants  who  inflict  them  still  live,  and  docility  is  lost  in  im 
becility  among  the  sufferers. 

These  things  were  utterly  unknown  to  our  early  institutions. 
It  is  difficult  to  realize  the  magnitude,  power,  and  atrocity  of 
this  oppression.  When  its  crushing  weight  first  fell  upon  us,  we 
were  first  surprised,  then  astonished,  then  appalled,  then  par 
alyzed  and  subdued. 

All  of  our  conceptions  of  the  Swiss  tyranny,  in  the  conflict 
between  Gessler  and  Tell,  were  more  than  realized. 

All  the  traditions  of  Jeffrey's  court  in  the  celebrated  "  bloody 
campaign,"  has  been  outdone  before  our  eyes,  in  the  murder  of 
Mrs.  Surratt. 

The  petty  annoyances  of  the  landlord  system,  the  miseries, 
oppressions,  and  robberies  of  Irish  absenteeism,  are  so  exactly 
renewed  among  us,  that  the  blood  is  chilled  in  contemplation  of 
the  sufferings  of  a  brave  and  honest  people,  determined  to  be 
free ;  under  a  shameful  and  annoying  espionage,  unknown  to 
free  government,  the  opprobrium  of  all  governments. 

This  system  will  increase  with  the  growth  of  the  other  depart 
ments  of  oppression.  In  France,  there  was  in  the  times  of  Louis 
XVI,  an  army  of  patrols,  constantly  employed  to  secure  their 
fiscal  regulations  against  the  inroads  of  contraband  trade. 

Necker  computes  the  number  of  these  spies,  in  his  time,  at 
twenty  thousand.  In  the  civil  and  military  service  of  the  United 
States,  the  number  is  incredible  and  increasing,  and  as  the  mili 
tary  usurpation  gradually  extends  northward,  the  ratio  of  spies 
and  conspirators  will  grow  more  numerous  and  more  insolent. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

MILITARY  USURPERS. 

HE  is  a  silly  fellow  who  dreams  that  such  a  debt  as  that  which 
throws  its  dark  shadow  over  our  destiny,  can  be  collected,  with 
out  a  standing  army  of  mercenaries,  of  great  magnitude  and 
widely  diffused. 

The  first  installment  is  a  yoke  now  galling  the  necks  of  the 
Southern  people,  quite  as  much  intended  for  the  North ;  and  a 
quiet  resignation  to  the  unreasoning  behests  of  military  usurpa 
tion,  will  be  neither  misinterpreted  or  misappropriated.  Just  as 
soon  as  the  military  authority  is  fully  established  over  the  civil 
power  of  the  Southern  States,  it  will  then  feel  its  way  for  the 
permanent  establishment  of  military  power  in  all  of  the  North 
ern  States,  for  the  double  purpose  of  overawing  the  people,  and 
giving  employment  to  an  increased  standing  army,  officered  by 
the  sons,  brothers,  nephews,  relatives,  and  friends  of  members  of 
Congress. 

Immense  standing  armies  have  not  only  destroyed  the  liberties 
of  every  free  people  where  they  have  been  allowed  a  foothold, 
but  they  have  as  certainly  bankrupted  every  monarchy  or  des 
potism  where  they  have  been  employed  to  enforce  the  laws  of 
the  kingdom,  or  edicts  of  the  emperor. 

The  Paine  Military  Bill  is  the  consummation  of  the  military 
government  of  the  United  States.  When  once  in  operation, 
soldiers  will  be  placed  in  the  neighborhood  of  every  large  man 
ufactory,  mine  and  furnace,  to  keep  down  strikes  among  the 
operatives.  They  will  soon  be  a  necessary  appendage  of  every 
revenue  collector's  office,  to  seize  for  sale  such  property  as  may 
be  necessary  to  pay  the  current  taxes ;  and  act  as  spies  upon  the 
little  remaining  liberty  of  the  poor,  and  detectives  upon  the 
property  of  the  people. 


510  CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

These  hirelings  will  grind  out  the  last  remaining  substance  of 
the  people,  who  are  each  year  growing  poorer  under  the  crush 
ing  weight  of  oppression,  and  still  they  endure  it. 

''Smitten  stones  will  talk  with  fiery  tongue; 
And  the  worm,  when  trodden  will  turn  ; 
But  cowards,  ye  cringe  to  the  crudest  wrongs, 

And  answer  with  never  a  spurn. 
Then  torture,  oh  tyrants,  the  spiritless  drove, 

Old  England's  Helots  will  bear  ; 
There's  no  hell  in  their  hatred,  no  God  in  their  love, 
Nor  shame  in  their  dearth's  despair. 

For  our  fathers  are  praying  for  pauper  pay, 
Our  mothers  with  death's  kiss  are  white, 
Our  sons  are  the  rich  man's  serfs  by  day, 
And  our  daughters  his  slaves  by  night. 

"  The  tearless  are  drunk  with  our  tears  ;  have  they  driven 

The  God  of  the  poor  man  mad  ? 
For  we  weary  of  waiting  the  help  of  Heaven, 

And  the  battle  goes  still  with  the  bad. 
Oh,  but  death  for  death,  and  life  for  life; 

It  were  better  to  take  and  give, 
"With  hand  to  throat,  and  knife  to  knife, 

Than  die  out  as  thousands  live! 

For  our  fathers  are  praying  for  pauper  pay, 
Our  mothers  with  death's  kiss  are  white; 
Our  sons  are  the  rich  man's  serfs  by  day, 
And  our  daughters  his  slaves  by  night. 

"Fearless  and  few  were  the  heroes  of  old, 

Who  played  the  peerless  part ; 
We  are  fifty-fold,  but  the  gangrene  gold 

Hath  eaten  out  Hampden's  heart. 
With  their  faces  to  danger,  like  freemen  they  fought, 

With  their  daring,  all  heart  and  hand  ; 
And  the  thunder  deed  followed  the  lightning  thought, 

When  they  stood  for  their  own  good  land. 

For  our  fathers  are  praying,  &c. 

"  When  the  heart  of  one-half  the  world  doth  beat, 

Akin  to  the  brave  and  true ; 
And  the  tramp  of  Democracy's  earthquake  feet, 

Goes  thrilling  the  wide  world  through, 
We  should  not  be  living  in  darkness  and  dust, 

And  dying  like  slaves  in  the  night; 
But,  big  with  the  might  of  the  inward  '  must,'' 

We  should  battle  for  freedom  and  right. 

For  our  fathers  are  praying,"  &c. 

To  this  extremity  are  the  bondholders  driving  the  people,  un 
willing  to  risk  the  payment  of  the  hateful  debt,  in  the  ordinary 
chances  of  business.  The  bondholders,  through  their  instru- 


CRIMES  OP  THE   CIVIL   WAK.  511 

ments  in  Congress,  have  invoked  the  military  power,  ostensibly 
to  restore  the  Southern  States  to  the  "  Union"  but  really  to  or 
ganize  a  monstrous  standing  army,  to  establish  the  English 
funding  system,  and  collect  the  taxes,  and  pay  the  interest  in  all 
time  to  come, —  to  abolish  the  forms,  as  they  have  already  de 
stroyed,  the  spirit  of  liberty. 

"War  is  the  statesman's  game,  the  priest's  delight, 
The  lawyer's  jest,  the  hired  assassin's  trade. 
And  to 'those  royal  murderers  whose  mean  thrones 
Are  bought  by  crimes  of  treachery  and  gore, 
The  bread  they  eat,  the  staff  on  which  they  lean, 
Guards,  garbed  in  blood-red  livery,  surround 
Their  palaces,  participate  the  crimes 
That  force  defends,  and  from  a  nation's  rage 
Secures  the  crown,  which  all  the  curses  reach 
That  famine,  frenzy,  woe  and  penury  breathe. 
These  are  the  hired  bravoes  who  defend 
The  tyrant's  throne — the  bullies  of  his  fear; 
These  are  the  sinks  and  channels  of  worst  vice, 
The  refuse  of  society,  the  dregs 
Of  all  that  is  most  vile ;  their  cold  hearts  blend 
Deceit  with  sternness,  ignorance  with  pride, 
All  that  is  mean  and  villainous  with  rage, 
Which  hopelessness  of  good,  and  self-contempt 
Alone  might  kindle.     They  are  decked  in  wealth, 
Honor  and  power,  then  are  sent  abroad 
To  do  their  work.     The  pestilence  that  stalks 
In  gloomy  triumph  through  some  eastern  land 
Is  less  destroying.     They  cajole  with  gold 
And  promises  of  fame,  the  thoughtless  youth 
Already  crushed  with  servitude ;  he  knows 
Eis  wretchedness  too  late,  and  cherishes 
Eepentance  for  his  ruin,  when  his  doom 
Is  sealed  in  gold  and  blood." 

The  day  of  our  degradation  is  here.  Never  before  in  our 
brief,  but  glorious  history,  could  any  soldier,  proud  of  his  fame, 
have. been  bribed  or  forced  or  persuaded  to  hold  military  power, 
to  crush  out  civil  law.  Anthony  Wayne,  Ethan  Allen,  Israel 
Putnam,  or  Daniel  Morgan,  Francis  Marion,  old  Wade  Hamp 
ton,  Starke,  or  Sumpter,  would  rather  have  perished  at  the  stake, 
in  imitation  of  the  heroic  Crawford.  Philip  Schuyler,  Nathan- 
ael  Greene,  Alexander  Hamilton,  or  George  Washington,  scorned 
the  money  and  despised  the  power  of  kings  in  such  a  demand. 
Benedict  Arnold  did  do  it,  and  the  very  jewels  which  glitter  on 
their  crowns  of  glory,  are  the  more  brilliant,  when  sparkling 
through  the  cloud  that  overhangs  that  other  nameless  name. 


512  CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL    WAB. 

These  were  more  than  soldiers.  They  loved  liberty,  and  un 
derstood  the  cause  in  which  they  fought. 

Washington,  John  Adams,  his  son,  Jefferson,  or  any  of  the 
fathers  of  liberty,  would  have  perished,  rather  than  promulgate 
this  crime  infernal.  The  military  reconstruction  law  is  a  bid 
for  anarchy  and  civil  war.  The  country,  by  its  lawgivers,  is 
placed  beyond  the  reach  of  law. 

"  When  Nero 

High  over  flaming  Rome,  with  savage  joy, 
Lowered  like  a  fiend,  drank  with  enraptured  ear 
The  shrieks  of  agonizing  death,  beheld 
The  frightful  desolation  spread,  and  felt 
A  new  created  sense  within  his  soul 
Thrill  to  the  sight,  and  vibrate  to  the  sound  : 
Thinkest  thou  his  grandeur  had  not  overcome 
The  force  of  human  kindness?    And  when  Rome 
With  one  stern  blow  hurled  not  the  tyrant  down, 
Crushed  not  the  arm,  red  with  her  dearest  blood, 
Had  not  submissive  abjectness  destroyed 
Nature's  suggestions."  —QUEEN  MAD. 


THE  END. 


CHAPTER    V. 


The  Christian  justly  ascribes  his  inalienable  rights  to  the 
gift  of  God.  The  Citizen  fondly  traces  the  assertion  of  his 
liberty  down  through  ages  of  conflict  and  scenes  of  violence. 
A  brave  and  persistent  ancestry  are  not  the  less  endeared  to 
us  for  the  tenacity  with  which  they  held  fast  those  privileges, 
secured  even  by  kingly  Governments,  and  the  boldness  with 
which  they  contended  with  Kings  for  the  surrender  of  pre 
rogatives  which  had  been  assumed  at  the  expense  of  right. 

Among  the  Archives  of  Europe  there  is  no  paper  so  dear 
to  Freemen  as  the  GREAT  CHARTER  extorted  from  John  by 
the  Barons.  This  foundation  stone  of  British  liberty  saved 
to  her  people  the  rivers  of  blood  which  drained  the  heart  of 
France  in  the  Revolution  of  1789.  It  gave  to  the  people  of 
England  an  immunity  from  the  long  continued  oppressions 
which  brought  Louis  the  XVI.  to  the  block,  and  the  horrors 
which  have  culminated  in  the  expulsion  of  Isabella  from 
Spain. 

Had  the  Liberties  of  all  Europe  been  even  thus  guaranteed 
the  field  of  Waterloo  and  the  ages  of  war,  the  oppression  of 
the  poor,  and  the  Riot  of  Kings  could  never  have  been  inter 
woven  into  the  history  of  Christian  Civilization  in  the  heart 
of  the  most  refined  ages  of  the  most  eminently  cultivated 
spot  of  the  earth. 

John  Lackland  forgot  that  he  was  the  creature  of  the  peo 
ple  whose  rights  he  trampled  down. 

This  monster  had  murdered  his  nephew  Arthur  as  the 
only  means  of  reaching  the  throne  of  his  Father.  A  Liber 
tine,  a  tyrant,  and  a  murderer.  He  was  divested  of  his  pos 
session  in  France,  excommunicated  by  the  Pope  of  Rome 
and  abandoned  by^  the  subjects  of  his  own  Kingdom  for  the 


514  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

violation  of  the  Great  Charter,  which  had  been  extorted 
from  him  as  a  bond  to  keep  the  peace.  The  people  of  Eng 
land  never  lost  sight  of  the  danger  of  liberty  from  power  in 
the  hands  of  their  Kings.  They  therefore  made  each  mon 
arch  hold  this  Charter  sacred. 

To  the  brave  Barons  were  the  people  indebted  for  the 
Charter  which  secured  these  rights  to  them  and  the  people 
who  held  under  them  whose  treasure  and  blood  furnish  the 
food  and  material  of  wars.  This  Charter  emboldened  the 
people  to  struggle  with  each  successive  Sovereign  until  the 
present  enlightened  English  nation  may  well  rejoice  in  a 
constitutional  freedom,  which  is  the  pride  of  their  people  and 
the  glory  of  Christendom. 

Edward  the  First  was  forced  to  reaffirm  this  Charter  as  a 
condition  upon  which  he  should  hold  the  Crown. 

The  Statute  of  Treasons  in  1350  again  confirms  the  sanc 
tity  of  Magria  Charta. 

In  the  third  year  of  Charles  the  First  whilst  playing  ty 
rant  upon  the  throne  he  was  forced  to  affirm  this  Charter 
embodied  in  the  petition  of  Rights. 

It  was  again  reaffirmed  in  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  of  1672, 
in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second.  It  was  incorporated 
into  the  Bill  of  Rights  upon  the  ascension  of  William  and 
Mary  to  the  Throne  of  Great  Britain,  when  James  was 
forced  to  abandon  his  country  and  his  throne  for  the  viola 
tion  of  this  Charter. 

The  Feudal  System  which  encumbered  the  Lands,  the 
spirit  of  superstition  which  engendered  the  spirit  of  persecu 
tion  against  the  Jews,  the  uncultivated  character  of  the 
people,  were  all  insufficient  combined  to  destroy  their  love 
of  liberty,  their  attachment  to  self  government  and  the  right 
to  local  Legislation. 

Even  in  that  early  age  the  Barons  despised  the  Divine 
right  of  Kings.  The  intelligent  people  well  understood 
their  right.  Lord  Lyttleton  says  in  his  Persian  letters : 
"  If  the  privileges  of  the  people  of  England  be  concessions 


CRIMES  OF   THE   CIVIL  WAR.  515 

from  the  Crown,  is  not  the  power  of  the  Crown  itself  a  con 
cession  from  the  people  ?" 

Feeble  as  were  these  early  struggles  of  the  people  to  se 
cure  their  rights,  there  were  many  great  truths  which  found 
their  way  to  the  hearts  of  the  people  and  transmitted  as  fire 
side  law  to  their  children.  Among  these,  the  most  precious 
was  the  right  of  resistance  to  the  arbitrary  exercise  of 
authority. 

Blackstone  asserts  these  rights  in  this  fearless  style  :  "  To 
vindicate  these  rights  (of  self-defence),  when  actually  vio 
lated  or  attacked,  the  subjects  of  England  are  entitled,  in 
the  first  place,  to  the  regular  administration  and  free  course 
of  justice  in  the  Courts  of  Law  :  next,  to  the  right  of  peti 
tioning  the  King  and  Parliament  for  redress  of  grievances  : 
and  lastly,  to  the  right  of  having  and  using  arms  for  self- 
preservation  and  defence/'  Deloline  says  :  "  This  right  of 
opposing  violence  in  whatever  shape  and  from  whatever 
quarter  it  may  come,  is  so  generally  acknowledged  that  the 
Courts  of  Law  have  sometimes  grounded  their  judgement 
upon  it."  I  shall  relate  on  this  head  a  fact  which  is  some 
what  remarkable  :  "  A  Constable,  being  out  of  his  precinct, 
arrested  a  woman  whose  name  was  Anna  Dekeins  one  TOOLY 
took  her  part,  and  in  the  heat  of  the  fray  killed  the  assistant 
of  the  Constable.  Being  prosecuted  for  murder,  he  alleged 
in  his  defence  that  the  illegality  of  the  imprisonment  was  a 
sufficient  provocation  to  make  the  Homicide  excusable  and 
entitled  him  to  the  benefit  of  the  Clergy.  The  Jury,  having 
settled  the  matter  of  fact,  left  the  criminality  of  it  to  be  de 
cided  by  the  Judge,  by  returning  a  special  verdict.  The 
cause  was  adjourned  to  the  King's  Bench,  and  thence  again 
to  Serjeant's  Inn  for  the  opinion  of  the  twelve  Judges." 

Judge  Holt,  in  delivering  their  opinion,  says  :  "  If  one  be 
imprisoned  upon  an  unlawful  authority,  it  is  a  sufficient 
provocation  to  all  people  out  of  compassion,  much  more  so 
when  it  is  done  under  color  of  justice,  and  when  the  liberty 
of  the  subject  is  invaded,  it  is  a  provocation  to  all  the  sub- 


CHIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

jects  of  England,  a  man  ought  to  be   concerned   for   Magna 
Gharta." 

Although  Tooly  did  not  know  that  the  Constable  was  out 
of  his  precinct,  yet,  notwithstanding  this,  seven  of  the 
Judges  adjudged  him  guilty  only  of  manslaughter,  and  ad 
mitted  him  to  the  benefit  of  the  Clergy. 

The  English  held  this  truth  sacred,  that  the  cause  of  the 
humblest  subject  was  the  cause  of  the  whole  Kealm. 

In  the  late  Struggle  in  this  country  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
people  to  have  preserved  their  liberties  inviolable  from  un 
lawful  attacks,  whether  made  under  Civil  or  Military  pre 
tence. 

The  Marshal  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution,  who 
arrested  citizens  at  the  command  of  Wm.  H.  Seward,  who 
was  not  a  judicial  officer,  should  have  been  served  as  Tooly 
served  the  Constable,  or  treated  as  any  other  trespasser. 

Had  this  course  been  promptly  taken  with  the  kidnappers 
and  highwaymen  who  usurped  power  to  outrage  Public  Lib 
erty,  these  crimes  would  soon  have  ceased. 

It  was  the  duty  of  the  people  to  have  swept  from  the  face 
of  the  Earth  those  loathesome  dens  of  torture  in  which 
thousands  of  the  best  citizens  of  the  State  were  crowded,  in 
sulted  and  murdered  without  trial,  or  even  accusation. 

This  summary  process  would  soon  have  restored  peace  to 
communities,  and  confined  the  war  to  the  armies.  In  every 
community  where  the  people  with  manly  courage  met  and 
chastised  the  aggressors,  the  aggressions  ceased  at  once. 

In  Bucyrus,  Ohio,  when  vagabonds  from  the  Army  under 
took  the  destruction  of  private  property,  they  were  promptly 
punished  by  the  people  and  the  aggressions  ceased.  So  was 
it  everywhere,  that  the  people  promptly  punished  any  attempt 
at  violence  upon  the  rights  of  the  people. 

So  dangerous  is  it  to  yield  to  the  first  inroads  upon  our 
liberty,  that  the  life  of  its  invaders  is  not  to  be  compared  in 
value  to  that  liberty  itself,  which  has  been  environed  by  the 
sabres  of  the  seven  bravest  and  most  illustrious  of  our  race, 
defended  by  the  strongest  of  all  our  Statesmen,  and  adorned 


CRIMES   OP   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  517 

by  the  purest  of  Christians  as  second  in  their  devotion  only 
to  God  himself. 

AKTICLE  XV. 

SEC.  1.  The  right  of  any  Citizen  of  United  States  to  vote 
shall  not  be  denied  or  abriged  by  the  United  States,  or  any 
State  by  reason  of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  Sla 
very  of  any  citizen  or  class  of  the  United  States. 

SEC.  2.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  by  ap 
propriate  legislation  the  Provisions  of  this  Article. 

The  second  section  accompanying  the  three  last  counterfit 
amendments  were  hitherto  regarded  unnecesssary  appenda 
ges  of  the  ordinary  amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  The  usurpation  of  power,  by  this  means, 
rendered  it  necessary  to  these  amendments  to  invoke  addi 
tional  legislative  aid. 

The  analysis  of  XVth  Amendment  is  the  most  terrible  re 
view  of  the  degredation  of  an  enlightened  people.  The 
article  proposed  embraces  every  race — NEGRO,  INDIAN,  MONGO 
LIAN,  MALAY,  ESQUIMAUX,  AUSTRALIAN  and  by  the  utmost 
charity  the  European. 

This  clause,  were  it  adopted,  would  array  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  against  the  law  of  Moses,  and  against 
the  history  of  civilization  !  It  is  a  direct  attack  upon  the 
law,  philosophy,  and  progress  of  the  Christian  era,  "or  pre 
vious  condition  of  slavery. ' ' 

This  clearly  embraces  the  discharged  Convicts  of  all  the 
various  races,  who  have  unfortunately  been  enslaved  for  their 
crimes  ;  this  construction  is  legitimate  and  beyond  escape. 

The  hatefulness  of  the  picture,  whose  hideous  countenance 
now  stares  us  in  the  face,  cannot  be  exaggerated. 

Familiarity  with  crime  has  debased  the  moral  sense  of  the 
people  until  the  diseases,  incident  to  the  body,  have  been 
transferred  to  the  mind,  and  the  loathesomeness  of  crime  has 
become  the  standard  of  desire  with  those  who  rule  and  op 
press  us. 


518  CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

"We,  the  people  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  Union 
establish  justice,  ensure  domestic  tranquility,  provide  for  the  common  defense, 
promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  Liberty  to  ourselves  and 
our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution  of  the  United  States  of 
America : 

ARTICLE  I— CONGRESS. 

SECTION  I — Legislative  Powers. 

^  1 .  All  legislative  powers  herein  granted  shall  be  vested  in  a  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  which  shall  consist  of  a  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives. 

SECTION  II — House  of  Representatives. 

1 .  The  House  of  Representatives  shall  be  composed  of  members  chosen  every 
secon.d  year  by  the  people  of  the  several  States,  and  the  electors  in  each  State 
shall  have  qualifications  requisite  for  electors  of  the  most  numerous  branch  of  the 
State  Legislature. 

Qualification  of  Members — Appointment. 

2.  No  person  shall  be  a  Representative  who  shall  not  have  attained  to  the  age 
of  twenty -five  years,  and  been  seven  years  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  who 
shall  not,  when  elected,  be  an  inhabitant  of  that  State  in  which  he  shall  be 
chosen. 

3.  Representatives  and  direct  taxes  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  several 
States  which  may  be  included  within  this  Union  according  to  their  respective 
numbers,  which   shall  be    determined   by  adding   to  the  whole  number  of  free 
persons,  including  those  bound  to  service  for  a  term  of  years,  and  excluding 
Indians  not  taxed,  three  fifths  of  all  other  persons.      The  actual  enumeration 
shall   he  made  within  three  years  after  the  first  meeting  of  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States,  and  within  every  subsequent  term  of  ten  years,  in  such  man 
ner  as  they  shall  by  law  direct.      The  number  of  Representatives  shall  not 
exceed  one  for  every  thirty  thousand,  but  each  State  shall  have  at  least  one 
Representative;  and  until  such  enumeration  shall   be   made,  the  State  of  New 
Hampshire  shall  be  entitled  to  choose  three,  Massachusetts  eight,  Rnode  Island  and 
Providence  Plantations  one,   Connecticut  five,  New    York  six,  Neiv  Jersey  four, 
Pennsylvania  eight,  Delaware  one,  Maryland  six,   Virginia  ten,  North    Carolina 
five,  South  Carolina  five,  and  Georgia  three. 

4.  When  vacancies  happen  in  the  representation  from  any  State,  the  Executive 
authority  thereof  shall  issue  writs  of  election  to  fill  such  vacancies. 

5.  The  House  of  Representatives  shall  choose  their  speaker  and  other  officers, 
and  shall  have  the  sole  power  of  impeachment. 

SECTION  III — Senate. 

1.  The  Senate  of  the  United  States  shall  be  composed  of  two  Senators  from  each 
State,  chosen  by  the  Legislature   thereof  for  six   years  ;  and  each  Senator  shall 
have  one  vote. 

2.  Immediately  after  they  shall  be  assembled  in  consequence  of  the  first  election, 
they  shall  be  divided  as  equally  as  may  be  into  three  classes.     The  seats  of  the 
Senators  of  the  first  class  shall  be  vacated  at  the  expiration  of  the  second  year, 
of  the  second  class  at  the  expiration  of  the  fourth  year,  and  of  the  third  class  at 
the  expiration  of  the  sixth  year;  so  that  one  third  may  be  chosen  every  second  year; 
and  if  vacancies  happen  by  resignation,  or  otherwise,  during  the  recess  of  the 
Legislature  of  any  State,  the  Executive  thereof  may  make  temporary  appoint 
ments,  until  the  next  meeting  of  the  Legislature,  which  shall  then  fill  such 
vacancies. 


CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  519 

3.  No  person  shall  be  a  Senator  who   shall   not  have  attained  to  the  age  of 
thirty  years,  and  been  nine  years  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  who  shall 
not,  when  elected,  be  an  inhabitant  of  that  State  for  which  he  shall  be  chosen. 

4.  The  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  shall  be  President  of  the  Senate, 
but  shall  have  no  vote  unless  they  be  equally  devided. 

5.  The  Senate  shall  choose  their  officers,  and  also  a  President  pro  tempore.  in 
the  absense  of  the  Vice-President,  or  when  he  shall  exercise  the  office  of  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States, 

6.  The  Senate  shall  have  the  sole  power  to  try  all  impeachments  ;  when  sitting 
for  that  purpose,  they  shall  be  on  oath,  or  affirmation.     When  the  President  of 
of  the  United  States  is  tried,  the  Chief  Justice  shall  preside ;  and  no  person  shall 
be  convicted  without  the  concurrence  of  two  thirds  of  the  members  present. 

7.  Judgment  in  cases  of  impeachment  shall  not  extend  farther  than  to  removeal 
from  office,  and  disqualification  to  hold  and  enjoy  any  office  of  honor,  trust  or 
profit  under  the  United  States ;  but  the  party  convicted  shall  nevertheless  be 
liable  and  subject  to  indictment,  trial,  judgment  and  punishment,  according  to 
law. 

SECTION  IV — Election  of  Members. 

1.  The  times,  places  and  manner  of  holding  elections  for  Senators  and  Repre 
sentatives,  shall  be  prescribed  in  each  State  by  the  Legislature  thereof;  but  the 
Congress  may,  at  any  time,  by  law,  make  or  alter  such  regulations,  except  as  to 
the  place  of  choosing  Senators. 

2.  The  Congress  shall  assemble  at  least  once  in  every  year,,  and  .such  meeting 
shall  be  on   the  first  Monday  in  December,  unless  they  shall  by  law  appoint 
a  different  day. 

SECTION  V — Powers  of  Each  House, 

1.  Ea'ch  House  shall  be  the  judge  of  the  elections,  returns  and  qualifications  of 
its  own  members,  and  a  majority  of  each  shall  constitute  a  quorum  to  do  business; 
but  a  smaller  number  may  adjourn  from  day  to  day,  and  may  be  authorized  to 
compel  the  attendance  of  absent  members,  in  such  manner,  and  under  such  pen 
alties,  as  each  House  may  provide. 

2.  Each  House  may  determine  the  rules  of  its  proceedings,  punish  its  members 
for  disorderly  behavior,  and,  with  the  concurrence  of  two  thirds,  expel  a  member. 

3.  Each  House  shall  keep  a  journal  of  its. proceedings,  and  from  time  to  time 
publish  the  same,  excepting  such  parts  as  may  in  their  judgment  require  secrecy; 
and  the  yeas  and  nays  of  the  members  of  either  House  on  any  question  shall,  at 
the  desire  of  one  fifth  of  those  present,  be  entered  on  the  journal. 

4.  Neither  House,  during  the  session  of  Congress,  shall,  without  the  consent  of 
the  other,  adjourn  for  more  than  three  days,  nor  to  any  other  place  than  that  in 
which  the  two  Houses  shall  be  sitting. 

ARTICLE  VI—  Compensation,  Privileges,  etc. 

1.  The  Senators  and  Representatives  shall  receive  a  compensation  for  their 
services,  to  be  ascertained   by  law,  and  paid  out  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States.     They  shall,  in  all  cases,  except  treason,  felony  and  breach  of  the  peace, 
be  privileged  from  arrest  during  their  attendance  at  the  session  of  their  respective 
Houses,  and  in  going  to  and  returning  from  the  same  ;  and  for  any  speech  or 
debate  in  either  House,  they  shall  not  be  questioned  in  any  other  place. 

2.  No  Senator  or  Representative  shall,  during  the  time  for  which  he  was  elected, 
be  appointed  to  any  civil  office  under  the  authority  of  the  Unised  States,  which 
shall  have  been  created,  or  the   emoluments  whereof  shall  have  been  increased 
during  such  time ;  and  no  person  holding  any  office  under  the  Uniied  States  shall 
be  a  member  of  either  House  during  his  continuance  in  office. 

SECTION  VII — Bills  and  Resolutions,  etc. 

1.  All  bills  for  raising  revenue  shall  originate  in  the  House  of  Representatives; 
but  the  Senate  may  propose,  or  concur  with  amendments,  as  on  other  bills. 

2.  Every  bill  which  shall  have  passed  the  House  of  Representatives  and  the 
Senate,  shall,  before  it  becomes  a  law,  be  presented  to  the  President  of  the  United 


520  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

States ;  if  he  approve  he  shall  sign  it,  but  if  not,  he  shall  return  it,  with  his  ob 
jections,  to  that  House  which  it  shall  have  originated,  who  shall  enter  the  objec 
tions  at  large  on  their  journal,  and  proceed  to  reconsider  it.  If  after  such 
reconsideration,  two  thirds  of  that  House  shall  agree  to  pass  the  bill,  it  shall 
be  sent,  together  with  the  objections,  to  the  other  House,  by  which  it  shall, 
likewise,  be  reconsidered,  and  if  approved  by  two  thirds  of  that  House,  it  shall 
become  a  law.  But  in  all  such  cases  the  votes  of  both  Houses  shall  be  determined 
by  yeas  and  nays,  and  the  names  of  the  persons  voting  for  and  against  the  bill 
shall  be  entered  on  the  Journal  of  each  House  respectively.  If  any  bill  shall  not 
be  returned  by  the  President  within  ten  days  (Sundays  excepted)  after  it  shall 
have  been  presented  to  him,  the  same  shall  be  a  law,  in  like  manner  as  if  he  had 
signed  it,  unless  the  Congress  by  their  adjournment  prevent  its  return,  in  which 
case  it  shall  not  be  a  law. 

3.  Every  order,  resolution  or  vote,  to  which  the  concurrence  of  the  Senate  and 
House  of  representatives  may  be  necessary  (except^m  a  question  of  adjournment) 
shall  be  presented  to  the  President  of  the  United  States ;  and  before  the  same 
shall  take  effect,  shall  be  approved  by  him,  or  being  disapproved  by  him,  shall 
be  repassed    by  two  thirds  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  according 
to  the  rules  and  limitations  prescribed  in  the  case  of  a  bill. 

SECTION  VIII — Powers  of  Congress, 

1.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  lay  and  collect  taxes,  duties,  imposts  and 
excises  to  pay  the  debts,  and  provide  for  the  common  defense  and  general  welfare 
of  the  United  States,  but  all  duties,  imposts    and  excises,  shall  be  uniform 
throughout  the  United  States. 

2.  To  borrow  money  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States. 

3-  To  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations,  and  among  the  several  States, 
and  with  the  Indian  tribes. 

4.  To  establish  an  uniform  Rule  of  naturalization,  and  uniform  laws  on  the 
subject  of  bankruptcies  throughout  the  United  States. 

5.  To  coin  money,  regulate  the  value  thereof,  and  of  foreign  coin,  and  fix  the 
standard  of  weights  and  measures. 

6.  To  provide  for  the  punishment  of  counterfeiting  the  securities  and  current 
coin  of  the  United  States. 

*7.  To  establish  post-offices  and  post  roads. 

8.  To  promote  the  progress  of  science  and  useful  arts,  by  securing  for  limited 
times  to  authors  and  inventors  the  exclusive  right  to  their  respective  writings  and 
discoveries. 

9.  To  constitute  tribunals  inferior  to  the  Supreme  Court; 

10.  To  define  and  punish  piracies  and  felonies  committed  on  the  high  seas,  and 
offenses  against  the  law  of  nations ; 

11.  To  declare  war,  grant  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal,  and  make  rules  con 
cerning  captures  on  land  and  water ; 

12.  To  raise  and  support  armies,  but   no  appropriations  of  money  to  that  use 
shall  be  for  a  longer  term  than  two  years  j 

13.  To  provide  and  maintain  a  navy  ; 

14.  To  make  rules  for  the  government  and   regulation  of  the  land  and  naval 
forces  ; 

15.  To  provide  for  calling  forth  the  militia  to  execute  the  laws  of  the  Union, 
suppress  insurrections  and  repel  invasions  ; 

16.  To  provide  for  organizing,  arming  and  disciplining   the  militia,  and  for 
governing  such  part  of  them  as  may  be   employed  in    the  service  of  the  United 
States,  reserving  to  the  States,  respectively,  the  appointment  of  the  officers  and 
the  authority  of  training  the   militia   according   to   the  discipline  prescribed  by 
Congress. 

17.  To  exercise  exclusive  legislation  in  all  cases  whatsoever,  over  such  district 
(not  exceeding  ten  miles  square)  as  may,  by  cession  of  particular  States,  and  the 
acceptance  of  Congress,  become  the  seat  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States, 
and  to  exercise  like  authority  over  all  places  purchased  by  the  consent  of  the 


CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  521 

Legislature  of  the  State  in  which  the  same  shall  be,  for  the  erection   of  forts, 
magazines,  arsenals,  dock-yards,  and  other  needful  buildings  ;  and, 

18.  To  make  all  laws  which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper  for  carrying  into 
execution  the  foregoing  powers,  and  all  other  powers  vested  by  this  Constitution 
in  the  government  of  the  United  States,  or  in  any  department  or  office  thereof. 

SECTION  IX — Prohibitions  and  Privileges 

1.  The  migration  or  importation  of  such  persons  as  any  of  the   States   now 
existing  shall  think  proper  to  admit,  shall  not  be  prohibited  by  the  Congress 
prior  to  the  year  1808,  but  a  tax  or  duty  may  be  imposed  on  such  importation, 
not  exceeding  ten  dollars  on  each  person. 

2.  The  privileges  of  the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  shall  not  be  suspended,  unless 
•when  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion  the  public  safety  may  require  it. 

3.  No  bill  of  attainder  or  ex  post  facto  law  shall  be  passed. 

4.  No  capitation  or  other  direct  tax  shall  be  laid,  unless  in  proportion  to  the 
census  or  enumeration  herein  before  directed  to  be  taken. 

5.  No  tax  or  duty  shall  be  laid  on  articles  exported  from  any  State. 

6.  No  preference  shall  be  given  by  any  regulation  of  commerce  or  revenue  to 
the  ports  of  one  State  over  those  of  another  ;  nor  shall  vessels  bound  to,  or  from, 
one  State,  be  obliged  to  enter,  clear,  or  pay  duties  in  another. 

t.  No  money  shall  be  drawn  from  the  Treasury  but  in  consequence  of  appro 
priation  made  by  law ;  and  a  regular  statement  and  account  of  the  receipts  and 
expenditures  of  all  public  money  shall  be  published  from  time  to  time. 

8.  No  title  of  nobility  shall  be  granted  by  the  United  States;  and  no  person 
holding  any  office  of  profit  or  trust  under  them,  shall,  without  the  consent  of  the 
Congress,  accept  of  any  present,  emolument,  office,  or  title  of  any  kind  whatever, 
from  any  king,  prince,  or  foreign  state. 

SECTION  X — State  Restrictions, 

1.  No  State  shall  enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or  confederation  ;  grant  let 
ters  of  marque  and  reprisal,  coin  money,  emit  bills  of  credit,  make  any  thing  but 
gold  and  silver  coin  a  tender  in  payment  of  debts,  pass  any  bill  of  attainder,  ex 
post  facto  law,  or  law  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts,  or  grant  any  title  of 
nobility. 

2.  No  State  shall,  without  the  consent  of  the  Congress,  lay  any  imposts  or  du 
ties  on  imports  or  exports,  except  what  may  be  absolutely  necessary  for  executing 
its  inspection  laws,  and  the  net  produce  of  all  duties   and   imposts,  laid  by  any 
State  on  imports  or  exports,  shall  be  for  the  use  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States;  and  all  such  laws  shall  be  subject  to  the  revision  and  control  of  the 
Congress. 

3.  No  State  shall,  without  the  consent  of  Congress,  lay  any  duty  on  tonnage, 
keep  troops,  or  ships  of  war  in  time  of  peace,  enter  into  any  agreement  or  com 
pact  with  another  State,  or  with  a  foreign  power,  or  engage  in   war,  unless 
actually  invaded,  or  in  such  imminent  danger  as  will  not  admit  of  delay. 

ARTICLE  II — PRESIDENT. 

1 .  The  executive  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  President  of  the  United  States  of 
America.     He  shall  hold  his  offiee  during  the  term  of  four  years,  and,  together 
with  the  Vice-President,  chosen  for  the  same  term,  be  elected  as  follows: 

2.  Each  State  shall  appoint,  in  such  manner  as  the  Legislature  thereof  may 
direct,  a  number  of  Electors,  equal  to  the  whole  number  of  Senators  and  Repre 
sentatives,  to  which  the  State  may  be  entitled  in  the  Congress  ;   but  no  Senator 
or  Representative,  or  person  holding  an  office  of  trust  or  profit  under  the  United 
States,  shall  be  appointed  an  Elector. 

3.  [The  electors  shall  meet  in  their  respective  States,  and  vote  by  ballot  for  two 
persons,  of  whom  one,  at  least  shall  not  be  an  inhabitant  of  the  same  State  with 
themselves.     And  they  shall  make  a  list  of  all  the  persons  voted  for,  and  of  the 
number  of  votes  for  each,  which  lists  they  shall  sign  and  certify,  and  transmit 
sealed  to  the  seat  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  directed  to  the  Presi- 


522  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

dent  of  the  Senate.  The  President  of  the  Senate  shall,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  open  all  the  certificates,  and  the  votes  shall 
then  be  counted.  The  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  shall  be  the 
President,  if  such  number  be  a  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  electors  appoint 
ed  ;  and  if  there  be  more  than  one  who  have  such  majority,  and  have  an  equal 
number  of  votes,  then  the  House  of  Representatives  shall  immediately  choose  by 
ballot  one  of  them  for  President ;  and  if  no  person  have  a  majority,  then  from  the 
five  highest  on  the  list  the  said  House  shall  in  like  manner  choose  the  President. 
But  in  choosing  the  President,  the  votes  shall  be  taken  by  States,  the  represen 
tation  from  each  State  having  one  vote ;  a  quorum  for  this  purpose  shall  consist 
of  a  member  or  members  from  two  thirds  of  the  States,  and  a  majority  of  all  the 
States  shall  be  necessary  to  a  choice.  In  every  case,  after  the  choice  of  the  Presi 
dent,  the  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  of  the  electors  shall  be  the 
Vice-President.  But  if  there  should  remain  two  or  more  who  have  equal  votes, 
the  Senate  shall  choose  from  them  by  ballot  the  Vice-President.] 
[This  clause  altogether  altered  and  supplied  by  the  XII  Amendment."] 

4.  The  Congress  may  determine  the  time  of  choosing  the  Electors,  and  the  day 
on  which  they  shall  give  their  votes,  which  day  shall  be  the  same  throughout  the 
United  States. 

5.  No  person,  except  a  natural  born  citizen,  or  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  at 
the  time  of  the  adoption  of  this   Constitution,  shall   be   eligible   to  the  office  of 
President ;   neither  shall  any  person  be  eligible  to  that  office  who  shall  not  have 
attained  to  the  age  of  thirty-five  years,  and  been  fourteen  years  a  resident  within 
the  United  States. 

6.  In  case  of  the  removal  of  the  President  from  office,  or  of  his  death,  resigna 
tion,  or  inability  to  discharge  the  powers  and  duties  of  the  said  office,  the  same 
shall  devolve  on  the  Vice-President,  and  the  Congress   may  by  law  provide  for 
the  case  of  removal,  death,  resignation,  or  inability  both  of  the  President  and 
Vice-President,  declaring  what  officer  shall  then  act  as  President,  and  such  officer 
shall  act  accordingly,  until  the  disability  be  removed,  or  a  President  shall  be 
elected. 

7.  The  President  shall,  at  stated  times,  receive  for  his  services  a  compensation, 
which  shall  neither  be  increased  nor  diminished  during  the  period  for  which  he 
shall  have  been  elected,  and  he  shall  not  receive  within  that  period  any  other 
emolument  from  the  United  States  or  any  of  them. 

8.  Before  he  enter  on  the  execution  of  his  office,  he  shall  take  the  following 
oath  or  affirmation  : 

"  I  do  solemnly  swear  (or  affirm)  that  I  will  faithfully  execute  the  office  of 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  will  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  preserve,  pro 
tect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 

SECTION  II — Powers  of  the  President. 

1.  The  President  shall  be  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the 
United  States,  and  of  the  militia  of  the  several  States,  when  called  into  the  actu 
al  service  of  the  United  States  ;  he  may  require   the  opinion,  in  writing,  of  the 
principal  officer  in  each  of  the  executive  departments  upon  any  subject  relating 
to  the  duties  of  their  respective  offices,  and  he  shall  have  power  to  grant  reprieves 
and  pardons  for  offenses  against  the  United   States,  except  in  cases  of  impeach 
ment. 

2.  He  shall  have  power,  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate,  to 
make  treaties,  provided  two  thirds  of  the  Senators  present  concur;  and  he  shall  nom 
inate,  and  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate,  shall  appoint  ambas 
sadors,  other  public  ministers  and  consuls,  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  all 
other  officers  of  the  United  States  whose  appointments  are  not  herein   otherwise 
provided  for,  and  which  shall  be  established  by  law  ;  but  the  Congress  may  by 
law  vest  the  appointment  of  such  inferior  officers  as  they  think  proper  in  the 
President  alone,  in  the  courts  of  law,  or  in  the  heads  of  departments. 

3.  The  President  shall  have  power  to  fill  up  all  vacancies  that  may  happen 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  523 

during  the  recess  of  the  Senate,  by  granting  commissions  which  shall  expire  at 
the  end  of  their  next  session. 

SECTION  III — Duties  of  the  President. 

\.  He  shall  from  time  to  time  give  to  the  Congress  information  of  the  state  of 
the  Union,  and  reccommend  to  their  consideration  such  measures  as  he  shall 
judge  necessary  and  expedient ;  he  may,  on  extraordinary  occasions,  convene 
both  Houses,  or  either  of  them,  and,  in  case  of  disagreement  between  them,  with 
respect  to  the  time  of  adjournment,  he  may  adjourn  them  to  such  a  time  as  he 
shall  think  proper  ;  he  shall  receive  ambassadors  and  other  public  ministers  ;  he 
shall  take  care  that  Ihe  laws  be  faithfully  executed,  and  shall  commission  all  the 
officers  of  the  United  States. 

SECTION  IV — Impeachment  of  Officers. 

1.  The  President,  Vice-President,  and  all  civil  officers  of  the  United  States, 
shall  removed  from  office  on  impeachment  for,  and  conviction  of  treason,  bribery 
or  other  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors. 

ARTICLE  III— JUDICIARY. 

SECTION  I — Courts — Judges. 

I .  The  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  be  vested  in  one  Supreme 
Court,  and  in  such  inferior  courts  as  the  Congress  may  from  time  to  time  ordain 
and  establish.  The  judges,  both  of  the  Supreme  and  inferior  courts,  shall  hold 
their  offices  during  good  behavior,  and  shall,  at  stated  times,  receive  for  their 
services  a  compensation  which  shall  not  be  diminished  during  their  continuance 
in  office. 

SECTION  II — Judicial  Powers — Civil — Criminal. 

1.  The  judicial  power  shall  extend  to  all  cases  in  law  and  equity,  arising  under 
this  constitution,  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  treaties  made,  or  which  shall 
be  made  under  their  authority  ;  to  all  cases  affecting   ambassadors,  other  public 
ministers  and  consuls  ;  to  all  cases  of  admiralty  and  maritime  jurisdiction  ;  to 
controversies  to  which  the  United  States  shall  be  a  party;  to  controversies  be 
tween  two  or  more  States — between  a  State  and  the  citizens   of  another  State — 
between  citizens  of  different  States — between  citizens  of  the  same  State  claiming 
lands  under  grants  of  different  States — and  between  a  State,  or  the  citizens  thereof, 
and  foreign  States,  citizen  or  subjects. 

2.  In  all  cases  affecting  ambassadors,  other  public  ministers  and  consuls,  and 
those  in  which  a  State  shall   be  party,  the  Supreme  Court  shall  have  original 
jurisdiction.     In  all  the  other  cases  before  mentioned,  the  Supreme  Court  shall 
have  appellate  jurisdiction,  both  as  to  the  law  and  fact,  with  such  exceptions,  and 
under  such  regulations  as  the  Congress  shall  make. 

3.  The  trial  of  all  crimes,  except  in  cases  of  impeachment,  shall  be  by  jury; 
and  such  trial  shall  be  held  in  the  State  where  the  said  crimes  shall  have  been 
committed  ;  but  when  not  committed  within  any  State,  the  trial  shall  beat  such 
place  or  places  as  the  Congress  may  by  law  have  directed. 

SECTION  III — Treason. 

1.  Treason  against  the  United  States,  shall  consist  only  in  levying  war  agains^ 
them,  or  in  adhering  to  their  enemies,  giving  them  aid  and  comfort.     No  person 
shall  be  convicted  of  treason  unless  on  the  testimony  of  two  witnesses  to  the  same 
overt  act,  or  in  confession  in  open  court. 

2.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  declare  the  punishment  of  treason,  but  no 
attainder  of  treason  shall  work  corruption  of  blood,  or  forfeiture,  except  during 
the  life  of  the  person  attained. 

ARTICLE  IV— STATB  RIGHTS. 
SECTION  I — Restitution  and  Privileges. 

1.  Full  faith  and  credit  shall  be  given  in  each  State  to  the  public  acts,  records, 
and  judicial  proceedings  of  every  other  State.  And  the  Congress  may  by  gen- 


524  CRIMES   OF   THE  CIVIL  WAR. 

eral  laws  prescribe  the  manner  in  which  such  acts,  records  and  proceedings  shall 
be  proved,  and  the  effect  thereof. 

SECTION  II — Privilege  of  Citizens. 

1.  The  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  privileges  and  immunities 
of  citizens  in  the  several  States. 

2.  A  person  charged  in  any  State  with  treason,  felony,  or  other  crime,  who 
shall  flee  from  justice,  and  be  found  in  another  State,  shall  on  demand   of  the 
Executive  authority  of  the  State  from  which  he  fled,  be  delivered  up,  to  be  re 
moved  to  the  State  having  jurisdiction  of  the  crime. 

3.  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor   in   one    State   under  the  laws   thereof, 
escaping  into  another  shall,  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be 
discharged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the 
party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due. 

SECTION  III — New  States. 

1.  New  States  may  be  admitted  by  the  Congress  into  this  Union ;  but  no  new 
State  shall  be  formed  or  erected  within  the  jurisdiction  of  any  other  State  ;  nor 
any  State  be  formed  by  the  junction  of  two  or  more  States,  or  parts  of  States, 
without  the  consent  of  the  Legislatures  of  the  States  concerned,  as  well  as  of  the 
Congress. 

2.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  dispose  of  and  make  all  needful  rules  and 
regulations  respecting  the  territory  or  other  property  belonging   to  the  United 
States  and  nothing  in  this  Constitution  shall  be  so  construed  as  to  prejudice  any 
claims  of  the  United  States,  or  of  any  particular  State. 

SECTION  IV — State   Governments — Republican. 

1.  The  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every  State  in  this  Union  a  republican 
form  of  government,  and  shall  protect  each  of  them  against  invasion  ;  and  on 
application  of  the  Legislature,  or  of  the  Executive  (when  the  Legislature  cannot 
be  convened),  against  domestic  violence. 

ARTICLE  V— AMENDMENTS. 

1.  The  Congress,  whenever  two  thirds  of  both  Houses  shall  deem  it  necessary, 
shall  propose  admendments  to  this  Constitution,  or,  on  the  application  of  the 
Legislatures  of  two  thirds  of  the  several  States,  shall  call  a  convention  for  pro 
posing  amendments,  which  in  either  case,  shall  be  valid  to  all  intents  and  pur 
poses,  as  part  of  this  Constitution  when  ratified  by  the  Legislatures  of  three 
fourths  of  the  several  States,  or  by  conventions  in  three  fourths  thereof,  as  the 
one  or  the  other  mode  of  ratification  may  be  proposed  by  the  Congress;  provided 
that  no  amendment  which  may  be  made  prior  to  the  year  1808  shall  in  any  man 
ner  affect  the  first  and  fourth  clauses  in  the  ninth  section  of  the  first  article ;  and 
that  no  State  without  its  consent,  shall  be  deprived  of  its  equal  suffrage  in  the 
Senate. 

ARTICLE  VI— DEBTS. 

1.  All  debts  contracted  and  engagements  entered  into  before  the  adoption  of 
this  Constitution,  shall  be  as  valid  against  the  United  States  under  this  constitu 
tion,  as  under  the  confederation. 

2.  This  Constiiution,  and  the  laws  of  the  United  States  which  shall  be  madein 
pursuance  thereof ;  and   all   treaties   made,  or   which   shall  he  made,  under  the 
authority  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  the  Supreme  law  of  the  land  ;  and  the 
judges  in  every  Slate  shall  be  bound  thereby,  any  thing  in  the  Constitution  or 
laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

The  Senators  and  Representatives  before  mentioned,  and  the  members  of  the 
several  State  Legislatures,  and  all  executive  and  judicial  officers,  both  of  the 
United  States  and  of  the  several  States,  shall  be  bound  t-y  oath  or  affirmation,  to 
support  this  Constitution  ;  but  no  religious  test  shall  ever  be  required  as  a  qualifi 
cation  to  any  office  or  public  trust  under  the  United  States. 


CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  525 

ARTICLE  VII— RATIFICATION. 

1.  The  ratification  of  the  conventions  of  nine  States  shall  be  sufficient  for  the 
establishment  of  this  Constitution  between  the  States  so  ratifying  the  same. 
Done  in   Convention,  by  the   unanimous  consent  of  the  States  present,  the 
seventeenth  day  of  September,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  one  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  eighty  seven,  and  of  the  Independence  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  the  Twelfth. 
In  witness  whereof,  we  have  hereunto  subscribed  our  names. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON,  President, 

and  Deputy  from  Virginia. 
Attest:  WM.  JACKSON,  Secretary. 

AMENDMENTS. 

Articles  in  addition  to,  and  amendment  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
of  America,  proposed  by  Congress,  and  ratified  by  the  Legislatures  of  the 
several  States,  pursuant  to  the  Fifth  article  of  the  original  Constitution. 

ARTICLE   I. 

Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibi" 
ting  the  free  exercise  thereof;  or  abridging  the  freedom  of  speech,  or  of  the  press; 
or  the  right  of  the  people  peaceably  to  assemble,  and  to  petition  the  Government 
for  a  redress  of  grievances. 

ARTICLE   II. 

A  well  regulated  militia  being  necessary  to  the  security  of  a  free  State,  the 
right  of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear  arms  shall  not  be  infringed. 

ARTICLE   III. 

No  soldier  shall,  in  time  of  peace,  be  quartered  in  any  house  without  the  con 
sent  of  the  owner,  nor  in  time  of  war  but  in  a  manner  to  be  prescribed  by  law. 

ARTICLE  IV. 

The  right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  papers  and  effects, 
against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures,  shall  not  be  violated  ;  and  no  war 
rants  shall  issue,  but  upon  probable  cause,  supported  by  oath  or  affirmation,  and 
particularly  describing  the  place  to  be  searched,  and  the  person  or  things  to  be 
seized. 

ARTICLE   V. 

No  person  shall  be  held  to  answer  for  a  capital  or  otherwise  infamous  crime, 
unless  on  a  presentment  or  indictment  of  a  grand  jury,  except  in  cases  arising 
in  the  land  or  naval  forces,  or  in  the  militia  when  in  actual  service,  in  time  of 
war  or  public  danger,  nor  shall  any  person  be  subject,  for  the  same  offense,  to  be 
twice  put  in  jeopardy  of  life  or  limb,  nor  shall  be  compelled  in  any  criminal  case 
to  be  a  witness  against  himself,  nor  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty  or  property,  with 
out  due  process  of  law,  nor  shall  private  property  be  taken  for  public  use  without 
just  compensation. 

ARTICLE   VI. 

In  all  criminal  prosecutions,  the  accused  shall  enjoy  the  right  to  a  speedy  and 
public  trial,  by  an  impartial  jury  of  the  State  and  district  wherein  the  crime  shall 
have  been  committed,  which  district  shall  have  been  previously  ascertained  by 
law,  and  to  be  informed  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  the  accusation,  to  be  confront 
ed  with  the  witnesses  againt  him,  to  have  compulsory  process  for  obtaining 
witnesses  in  his  favor,  and  to  have  the  assistance  of  counsel  for  his  defense. 

ARTICLE   VII. 

In  suits  at  common  law,  where  the  value  in  controversy  shall  exceed  twenty 
dollars,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  shall  be  preserved,  and  no  fact  tried  by  a  jury 
shall  be  otherwise  re-examined  in  any  court  of  the  United  States,  than  according 
to  the  rules  of  the  common  law. 


526  CRIMES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

ARTICLE   VIII. 

Excessive  bail  shall  not  be  required,  nor  excessive  fines  imposed  nor  cruel  and 
unusual  punishment  inflicted. 

ARTICLE   IX. 

The  enumeration  in  the  Constitution  of  certain  rights  shall  not  be  construed  to 
deny  or  disparage  others  retained  by  the  people. 

ARTICLE   X 

The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  pro 
hibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the  people 

ARTICLE   XI. 

The  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  not  be  construed  to  extend  to 
any  suit  in  law  or  equity  commenced  or  prosecuted  against  one  of  the  United 
States,  by  citizens  of  another  State,  or  by  citizens  or  subjects  of  any  foreign' 
State. 

ARTICLE    XII. 

The  Electors  shall  meet  in  their  respective  States,  and  vote  by  ballot  for  Presi 
dent  and  Vice-President,  one  of  whom,  at  least,  shall  not  bean  inhabitant  of  the 
same  State  with  themselves  :  they  shall  name  in  their  ballots  the  persons  voted 
for  as  President,  and  in  distinct  ballots  the  person  voted  for  as  Vice-President,  and 
they  shall  make  distinct  lists  of  all  persons  voted  for  as  President,  and  of  all  per 
sons  voted  for  as  Vice-President,  and  of  the  number  of  votes  for  each,  which 
lists  they  shall  sign  and  certify,  and  transmit,  sealed,  to  the  seat  of  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  directed  to  the  President  of  the  Senate  :  the  President 
of  the  Senate  shall,  in  presence  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  open 
all  the  certificates,  and  the  votes  shall  then  be  counted.  The  person  having  the 
greatest  number  of  votes  for  President  shall  be  the  President,  if  such  number  be 
a  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  Electors  appointed,  and  if  no  person  have  such 
majority,  then  from  the  persons  having  the  highest  numbers,  not  exceeding  three, 
on  the  list  of  those  voted  for  as  President,  the  House  of  Representatives  shall 
choose  immediately,  by  ballot,  the  President.  But  in  choosing  the  President,  the 
votes  shall  be  taken  by  States,  the  representation  from  each  State  having  one  vote :  a 
quorum  for  this  purpose  shall  consist  of  a  member  or  members  from  two  thirds  of 
the  States,  and  a  majority  of  all  the  States  shall  be  necessary  to  a  choice.  And 
if  the  House  of  Representatives  shall  not  choose  a  President  whenever  the  right  of 
choice  shall  devolve  upon  them,  before  the  fourth  day  of  March  next  following, 
then  the  Vice-President  shall  act  as  President,  as  in  case  of  the  death  or  other 
constitutional  disability  of  the  President. 

The  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  as  Vice-President  shall  be  the 
Vice-President,  if  such  number  be  a  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  Electors 
appointed,  and  if  no  person  have  a  majority,  then  from  the  two  highest  numbers 
on  the  list  the  Senate  shall  choose  the  Vice-President ;  a  quorum  for  the  purpose 
shall  consist  of  two  thirds  of  the  whole  number  of  Senators,  and  a  majority  of 
the  whole  number  shall  be  necessrry  to  a  choice. 

But  no  person  constitutionally  ineligible  to  the  office  of  President,  shall 
be  eligible  to  that  of  Vice-President  of  the  United  States. 

An  article  intended  as  a  thirteenth  amendment  to  the  Constitution  was  pro 
posed  at  the  Second  Session  of  the  Eleventh  Congress,  but  was  not  ratified  by  a 
sufficient  number  of  States  to  become  valid  as  a  part  of  the  Constitution.  It  is 
erroneously  given  in  an  edition  of  the  Laws  of  the  United  States,  published  by 
Bioren  and  Duane  in  1815. 

[NOTE, — The  eleventh  article  of  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  was  pro 
posed  at  the  Second  Session  of  the  Third  Congress,  the  twelfth  article,  at  the 
First  Session  of  the  Eighth  Congress,  and  the  thirteenth  article  at  the  Second 
Session  of  the  Eleventh  Congress.] 

ARTICLE    XIII. 

SEC,  1.  Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  except  as  a  punishment  foe 


CRIMES   OF   THE  CIVIL  WAR.  527 

crime  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly  convicted,  shall  exist  within  the 
United  States,  or  any  place  subject  to  their  jurisdiction. 

SEC.  2.  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  this  article  by  appropriate  Legis 
lation. 


THE  CONSTITUTION  of  the  United  States  was,  by  common 
consent,  a  compact  between  the  States.  The  Federal  Gov 
ernment  assumed  none  of  the  powers,  because  clothed  with 
none  of  the  attributes  of  a  municipal  or  State  government, 
nor  exercised  any  authority  over  the  citizens  of  the  States  in 
the  possession  of  their  property,  the  Domestic  Kelations,  or 
in  the  punishment  of  offences  against  liberty,  property  or 
life. 

THE  BILL  OF  RIGHTS  was  incorporated  into  the  State  Con 
stitution  because  the  people  looked  to  the  State  for  protec 
tion. 

The  Federal  government  was  a  compact  for  the  protection 
of  the  States. 

It  was  to  prevent  the  Federal  government  from  assuming 
authority  by  a  constructive  jurisdiction  that  the  twelve  arti 
cles  of  Amendments  were  legally  added  to  the  Constitution. 

During  the  last  eight  years  numberless  Amendments  have 
been  proposed  to  the  Constitution  by  every  manner  of  peo 
ple  assuming  authority. 

The  pretended  XHIth,  XlVth  and  XVth  Amendments 
can  have  no  legal  power  or  authority. 

I. — Because  there  has  been  no  adequate  power  in  being  to 
make  such  Amendments. 

i. — As  hath  been  demonstrated  elsewhere  in  this  work 
there  has  been  no  such  body  as  a  Congress  to  make  these 
Amendments. 

2.  There  have  not  been  three  fourths  of  the  Legislatures 
of  the  United  States  in  Session  at  any  time  since  the  year 
of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty  one. 


528  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL  WAR. 

There  have  been  no  Legislatures  in  Session  in  any  of  the 
States  expelled  from  the  Union  by  the  usurpations  of  Congress. 

3.  The  assemblages  of  strangers,  who  have  met  with  the 
negroes,  and  pretended  to  pass  laws  in  the  various  Capitals  of 
those  States  excluded  from  the  Union,  represented  neither 
the  person,  property ,  interest,  residence,  opinion,  nor  con 
sent  of  the  people  of  the  States  in  which  they  were  assembled. 
These  assemblies  were  but  conspiracies  which  should  have 
been  ejected  by  violence  as  usurpers  and  vagabonds. 

At  no  period  in  the  history  of  civilization  would  the  Courts 
of  law  have  regarded  such  an  assemblage  of  mendicant  strag 
glers,  as  the  present  mock  Legislatures  of  the  excluded 
States,  as  other  than  a  disorderly  assemblage  of  evil  disposed 
persons,  engaged  in  works  of  malicious  mischief  in  commu 
nities  with  which  they  had  no  identity. 

II. — This  disintegrated  Congress,  with  these  negro  and 
gipsy  mobs,  styling  themselves  Legislatures,  were  the  foun 
tain  of  authority  from  which  springs  these  new  articles  of 
Organic  Law. 

But  if  the  Congress  and  Legislatures  had  been  duly  con 
stituted,  even  then  would  the  Amendments  have  failed  to 
abolish  Slavery. 

III. — There  can  be  no  power  vested  in  Congress  to  inter 
fere  with  the  internal  affairs  of  the  State,  because  Congress 
was  created  to  protect  and  defend  ;  but  not  to  destroy  the 
inherent  rights  of  self-government. 

But  what  should  not  escape  observation  is  that  the  scope 
of  the  Xlllth  Amendment  would  not  reach  the  abolition  of 
Slavery  had  it  been  duly  adopted. 

The  language  employed  is  prohibitory,  simply  "neither 
slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  except  as  a  punishment, 
for  crimes,  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly  convicted 
shall  exist  within  the  United  States  or  any  place  subject  to 
their  "  jurisdiction/' 

In  the  matter  of  personal  relations  of  any  kind  the  United 
States  have  never  exercised  or  claimed  jurisdiction  in  the 
States  ;  but  there  is  no  other  Amendments  or  clause  in  this 


CRIMES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR.  529 

Amendment  conferring  C( JURISDICTION."  However  readily  the 
Constitution  may  prohibit  slavery  within  its  " JURISDICTION/' 
Yet  it  may  not  trespass  upon  the  jurisdiction  of  the  States 
without  delegated  authority  in  matters,  in  which  the  State 
has  always  exercised  sovereign  control. 

But  if  the  Congress  and  Legislature  had  been  legally 
constituted,  which  they  were  not ; 

Had  they  possessed  power  as  a  legal  body  to  make  such 
Amendments,  which  they  had  not  ; 

Did  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States  extend  to  the 
States,  which  it  does  not,  still  this  amendment  would  affect 
the  existence  of  slavery  only  in  the  Forts,  Arsenals  and  other 
territory  where  the  " jurisdiction'/  of  the  United  States  is 
supreme. 

It  is  of  no  consequence  in  this  enquiry  whether  slavery  be 
right  or  wrong,  profitable  or  ruinous. 

The  general  government  did  not  create  the  condition  of 
slavery.  This  subject  was  under  the  entire  control  and  <  'ju 
risdiction"  of  the  State  government,  and  there  the  jurisdic 
tion  yet  remains  and  cannot  be  surrendered  without  its  con 
sent.  This  question  involves  not  only  the  question  of  slavery _, 
but  with  it  the  identity  of  the  State  and  the  right  of  self- 
government. 

The  Constitution,  like  any  other  written  instrument,  must 
be  interpreted,  consistent  with  itself.  It  cannot  do  and  at 
the  same  time  not  do.  It  cannot  be  and  at  the  same  time 
not  be.  It  cannot  assume  Powers  which  are  not  granted 
when  it  has  its  existence  from  the  delegated  powers  from 
others. 

At  no  time  have  the  people  had  greater  need  than  now  to 
act  upon  this  plain  maxim,  that  what  may  not  be  clone 
directly,  may  not  be  indirectly  done,  and  that  what  is  fraudu 
lently  done  is  not  done  at  all.  These  sham  Amendments 
are  but  the  legitimate  fruits  of  a  war  of  Kapine,  murder  and 
desolation. 


530  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

ARTICLE  XIV. 

SECTION  1.  All  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States,  and  subject  to 
the  jurisdiction  thereof,  are  citizens  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  State  wherein 
they  reside.  No  State  shall  make  or  enforce  any  law  which  shall  abridge  the 
privileges  or  immunities  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  ;  nor  shall  any  State 
deprive  any  person  of  life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of  law.  nor 
deny  to  any  person  without  its  jurisdiction  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws. 

SECTION  2.  Representatives  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  several  States  accord 
ing  to  their  respective  numbers,  counting  the  whole  number  of  persons  in  each 
State,  excluding  Indians  not  taxed.  But  when  the  right  to  vote  at  any  election 
for  the  choice  of  electors  for  President  and  V ice-President  of  the  United  States, 
representatives  in  Congress,  the  executive  and  judicial  officers  of  a  State,  or  the 
members  of  the  legislature  thereof,  is  denied  to  any  of  the  male  inhabitants  of  such 
State,  being  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  citizens  of  the  United  States,  or  in  any 
way  abridged,  except  for  participation  in  rebellion  or  other  crime,  the  basis  of  rep 
resentation  therein  shall  be  reduced  in  the  proportion  which  the  number  of  such 
male  citizens  shall  bear  to  the  whole  number  of  male  citizens  twenty-one  years  of 
age  in  such  State. 

SECTION  3.  No  person  shall  be  a  senator  or  representative  in  Congress,  or  elector 
of  President  and  Vice-President,  or  ty  hold  any  office,  civil  or  military,  under  the 
United  States,  or  under  any  State,  who  having  previously  taken  an  oath,  as  a 
member  of  Congress,  or  as  an  officer  of  the  United  States,  or  as  a  member  of  any 
State  Legislature,  or  as  an  executive  or  judicial  officer  of  any  State,  to  support  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  shall  have  engaged  in  insurrection  or  rebellion 
against  the  same,  or  given  aid  or  comfort  to  the  enemies  thereof.  But  Congress 
may,  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  each  house,  remove  such  disability. 

SECTION  4.  The  validity  of  the  public  debt  of  the  United  States,  authorized  by 
law,  including  debts  incurred  for  payment  of  pensions  and  bounties  or  services  in 
suppressing  insurrection  or  rebellion,  shall  not  be  questioned.  But  neither  the 
United  States  nor  any  State  shall  assume  or  pay  any  debtor  obligation  incurred  in 
aid  of  insurrection  or  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  or  any  claim  for  the  loss 
or  emancipation  of  any  slave  ;  but  all  such  debts,  obligations  and  claims  shall  be 
held  illegal  and  void. 

SECTION  5.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce,  by  appropriate  legislation, 
the  provisions  of  this  article. 

Article  XIV  is  obnoxious  to  a  greater  degree  in  all  of  the 
objections  urged  against  Article  XIII  with  these  additional. 

I. — A  State  can  not  exist  without  power  to  regulate  its 
own  citizenship  ;  when  it  loses  this,  it  ceases  to  be  a  State  by 
the  very  relation  of  agent,  which  the  general  government  sus 
tains  to  the  State  Governments,  such  Amendment  would  be 
void  unless  by  a  specific  change  in  the  form  of  the  governments, 
which  could  no  longer  be  Kepublican  in  form,  but  rather 
a  dependency  upon  central  power  who  gave  to  it  charters  with 
such  conditions  as  occasion  might  require  or  convenience 
suggest.  Except  the  usurpation  there  is  nothing  new  in  the 
amendment  as  every  State  in  the  Union  had  governed  the 
people  by  law  ;  each  subjecting  every  class  of  persons  to  such 
regulation  as  good  order  required. 


CRIMES   OF   THE  CIVIL  WAR.  531 

Section  3  can  have  no  power  to  exclude  persons  guilty  of 
even  insurrection  or  rebellion  heretofore,  "because  the  amend 
ment  does  not  repeal  the  3d  clause  of  Section  9,  Article  I, 
which  declares  that  ' c  No  BILL  OF  ATTAINDER  OR  EXPOST  FACTO 
LAW  SHALL  BE  PASSED.  Nor  does  the  amendment  assume  a 
retrospective  form  to  include  the  persons  engaged  in  the  late 
sectional  war. 

If  it  did,  then  the  words  engaged  in  "insurrection  or  rebel 
lion"  would  not  include  persons  engaged  in  a  sectional  war 
bewteen  the  States  in  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  States, 
where  the  Powers  of  the  earth  following  the  example  of  the 
two  contending  governments  de  facto  acknowledged  and  ac 
corded  to  each  other  all  of  the  rights  of  Belligerents,  by  a 
thousand  Parleys,  Cartels,  and  other  military  arrangements. 

2. — The  Constitution  does  not  grant  power  to  the  general 
government  to  prescribe  qualifications  of  officers  for  any  of 
the  States. 

This  Amendment  does  not  provide  for  the  exercise  of  any 
such  power  by  the  Federal  Government.  An  Amendment 
providing  for  the  punishment  of  persons  for  prohibiting  their 
occupation  of  civil  or  military  offices,  where  the  government 
is  not  vested  with  the  necessary  jurisdiction  is  thus  far  in 
operative  and  void. 

So  far  as  insurrection,  rebellion,  &c.,  being  purnished  by 
disqualification  for  Federal  offices,  this  is  within  the  scope 
of  the  law  making  power,  without  amendment,  since  the 
language  of  the  article  is  not  retrospective,  and  could  not  be 
valid  if  it  were.  Congress  has  made  itself  the  laughing  stock 
of  the  world  by  the  fact  of  removing  legal  disabilities  ;  and 
those  late  of  the  Confederates  have  excited  the  just  contempt 
of  real  Heroes  who  have  sought  this  boon  of  enfranchisment 
from  the  hands  of  Congress. 

The  most  remarkable  fact  connected  with  this  Amendment 
was  the  lack  of  Audacity  to  couple  with  the  Amendment  the 
repeal  of  the  clause  prohibiting  "expost  facto  laws,"  and  giv 
ing  to  the  article  a  retrospective  scope.  But  since  it  has  not, 


532  CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

the  whole  code  of  laws  made  under  this  State  of  Anarchy 
will  involve  the  country  in  litigation  for  years  to  come. 

To  give  sanctity  to  the  great  Public  Debt  embedded  in 
treachery,  robbery  and  murder,  the  fourth  section  of  this 
Article  XIV  was  introduced  and  certified  as  a  part  of  the  Or 
ganic  Law  of  the  land. 

We  will  add  nothing  to  the  discussion  in  this  work  of  the 
Public  Debt. 

The  Congress  clearly  did  not  give  a  retrospective  inter 
pretation  to  this  section. 

They  did  not  indemnify  the  losers  by  Continental  Money ; 
nor  the  Creditors  of  the  Government,  who,  since  its  organi 
zation  according  to  Judge  Woodbury  have  lost  nearly  1000 
millions  of  just  debts  by  repudiation  ;  nor  did  they  indemnify 
women,  children,  infants,  orphans  and  helpless  old  people 
for  property  destroyed  by  or  appropriated  to  the  use  of  the 
Federal  Army. 

This  attempt  to  usurp  power  by  a  Constitutional  Amend 
ment  was  a  bribe  offered  to  the  Capital  of  the  country  to  as 
sist  in  the  destruction  of  popular  government. 

Notwithstanding  this  attempt,  every  debt  may  be  ques 
tioned — the  law  which  authorized  the  debt  may  be  question 
ed — the  Amendment  may  be  questioned  as  an  instrument 
entitled  to  no  more  consideration  as  a  part  of  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States  than  would  be  a  deed  for  property 
which  had  been  extorted  from  a  Grantor,  chained  hand  and 
foot,  and  acknowledged  before  a  corrupt  magistrate,  who 
lends  the  sanctity  of  his  official  seal  to  enforce  the  fraud. 
All  of  these  amendments  will  be  duly  cancelled  by  repudia 
tion. 


THE  CHARTER  OF  LIBERTY; 

OR,  THE  GREAT  CHARTER 
GRANTED  BY  KING  JOHN  TO  HIS  SUBJECTS  IN  THE  YEAR  1215. 

JOHN,  by  the  grace  of  God,  King  of  England,  Duke  of  Normandy,  and  Aquitain, 
and  Earl  of  Anjou ;  to  all  Archbishops,  Bishops,  Abbotts,  Piors,  Earls,  Barons, 
Sheriffs,  Officers,  and  to  all  Bailiffs  and  other  his  faithful  Subjects  Greeting : 

Know  ye  that  we  in  the  Presence  of  God  and  for  the  Health  of  our  Souls  and 
the  Souls  of  our  Ancestors,  and  Heirs,  and  to  the  Honor  of  God  and  the  Exalta 
tion  of  the  Holy  Church,  and  Amendment  of  our  Kingdom,  by  Advice  of  our  ven 
erable  Fathers,  Stephen,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Primate  of  all  England,  and 
Cardinal  of  the  Holy  Roman  Church,  Henry,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  William, 
Bishop  of  London,  Peter  of  Winchester,  Jocelin  of  Bath  and  Glastenbury,  Hugh  of 
Lincoln,  Walter  of  Worcester,  William  of  Coventry,  Benedict  of  Rochester,  Bishops  : 
and  Master  Pandulph,  the  Popes  Sub-Deacon  and  antient  Servant,  Brother  to 
Aymerick,  Master  of  the  Temple  in  England,  and  the  Noble  Persons  William  the 
Marshall,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  William  Earl  of  Salisbury,  William  Earl  of  Warren, 
William  Earl  of  Amndell,  Alande  Galoway  Constable  of  Scotland,  Warren  Fitz 
gerald,  Peter  Fitz  Herbert,  and  Hug  ode  Burgh,  Seneschals  of  Poictou,  Hugode  Nevil, 
Matthew  Fitz  Herbert,  Thomas  Bassett,  Alan  Bassett,  Philip  de  Albeney,  Robert  de 
Ropple,  John  Marshall,  John  Fitz  Hugh  and  others  our  Liegemen  have  in  the  first 
place  granted  to  God  and  by  this  our  present  Charter  confirmed  for  us  and  our 
Heirs  forever, 

I. 

That  the  Church  of  England  shall  be  free,  and  enjoy  her  whole  Rights  and  Lib 
erties  inviolable.  And  we  will  have  then  so  to  be  observed  that  it  may  appear 
that  the  Freedom  of  Elections,  which  was  reckond  most  necessary  for  the  Church 
of  England,  and  which  we  granted  and  conferr'd  for  our  Charter  and  obtain' d  the 
confirmation  of  from  Pope  Innocent  the  Third,  before  the  Discord  between  Us  and 
our  Barons,  was  of  our  meer  free  will  :  which  Charter  we  shall  observe  and  do  will 
it  to  be  faithfully  observed  by  our  Heirs  forever. 

II. 

We  have  also  granted  to  all  the  Freemen  of  our  Kingdom,  for  Us  and  our  Heirs 
forever,  all  the  under  written  Liberties,  to  have  and  to  hold  to  them  and  their  Heirs 
of  Us  and  ouc  Heirs. 

III. 

If  any  of  our  Earls,  or  Barons,  or  others,  who  hold  of  Us  in  Chief  by  Military 
Service,  shall  die,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  his  Heir  shall  be  of  full  age,  and 
owe  a  Relief,  he  shall  have  his  inheritance  by  the  antient  Relief;  that  is  to  say, 
the  Heir  or  Heirs  of  an  Earl,  for  a  whole  Earls  Barony,  by  an  hundred  Pounds.  The 
Heir  or  Heirs  of  a  Baron,  for  a  whole  Barony,  by  an  hundred  Marks  :  the  Heir  or 
Heirs  of  a  Knight,  for  a  whole  Knight's  Fee  by  an  Hundred  Shillings;  and  he 
that  oweth  less  shall  give  less,  according  to  the  Antient  Custom  of  Fees. 

IV. 

But  if  the  Heir  of  any  such  shall  be  under  Age,  and  shall  be  in  Ward,  his  Lord 
shall  not  have  the  Wardship  of  him,  nor  his  Land,  before  he  hath  received  his 
Homage ;  and,  after  such  Heir  shall  be  in  Ward,  and  shall  attain  to  the  Age  of 
One  and  Twenty  Years,  he  shall  have  his  Inheritance  without  Relief  or  without 
Fine.  Yet  so,  that  if  he  be  made  a  Knight  while  he  is  under  Age,  neverthless  the 
Land  shall  remain  in  the  Custody  of  the  Lord,  until  the  aforesaid  Time. 


534  CRIMES   OF   THE  CIVIL   WAR. 

Y. 

The  Warden  of  the  Land  ofsuch  Heir,  who  shall  be  under  Age,  shall  take  of  tli< 
Land  of  such  Heir,  only  reasonable  Issues,  reasonable  Costoms,  and  reasonable 
Service,  and  that  without  Destruction  and  Wasts  of  the  Men  or  Things  upon  the 
Estate  :  And  if  we  shall  commit  the  Guardianship  of  those  Lands  to  the  Sheriff  or 
any  other,  who  is  answerable  to  us  for  the  Issues  of  the  Land  ;  and  if  he  shall 
make  Destruction  and  waste  upon  the  Wardland,  we  will  compel  him  to  give  Sat 
isfaction,  and  the  Land  thall  be  committed  to  two  lawful  and  discreet  Tenants  of 
that  Fee,  who  in  like  manner  shall  be  answerable  for  the  Issues  to  Us  or  to  Him 
AY  horn  we  shall  assign  as  hath  been  said. 

VI. 

But  the  Warden,  so  long  as  he  shall  have  the  Wardship  of  the  Land,  shall  keep 
up  and  maintain  the  Houses,  Parks,  Warrens,  Ponds,  Mills,  and  other  things 
pertaining  to  the  Land,  out  of  the  Issues  of  the  same  Land;  and  shall  restore  to 
the  Heir,  when  he  comes  of  full  Age,  his  whole  Land  stock' d  with  Plows,  and  all 
other  Things,  at  least,  whatever  he  received.  And  all  these  things  shall  be  ob 
served  in  the  Custodies  of  vacant  Archbishopricks,  Bishopricks,  Abbies,  Pionies, 
Churches  and  Dignities  which  appertain  to  us ;  except  that  these  Wardships  are 
not  to  be  sold. 

VII. 

Heirs  shall  be  married  without  Disparagement;  so  that  before  Matrimony  shal 
be  contracted,  those  who  are  nearest  to  the  Heir  in  blood  shall  be  made  acquainted 
with  it. 

VIII. 

A  Widow,  after  the  Death  of  her  Husband,  shall  forthwith  and  without  any 
Difficulty,  have  her  Marriage,  and  her  Inheritance ;  nor  shall  she  give  anything 
for  her  Dower,  or  her  Marriage,  or  her  Inheritance,  which  her  Husband  and  she 
held  at  the  Day  of  his  Death  :  And  she  may  remain  in  the  Capital  Messuage  or 
Mansion  House  of  her  Husband  forty  Days  after  his  Death;  within  which  Term  her 
JJower  shall  be  assigned,  if  it  was  not  assigned  before,  or  unless  the  House  shall  be 
a  Castle,  and  if  she  departs  from  the  Castle,  there  shall  forthwith  be  provided  for 
her  a  compleate  House,  in  which  she  may  decently  dwell,  till  her  Dower  be  to  her 
assigned,  as  hath  been  said ;  and  she  shall  in  the  meantime  have  her  reasonable 
Estate  in  competent  maintenance  (out  of  the  Common  Revenue.}  And  there  shall  be 
assigned  to  her  for  her  Dower  the  third  Part  of  all  her  Husband's  Lands,  which 
were  his  in  his  Lifetime,  except  she  were  endow' d  with  less  at  the  Chnrch  Door. 

IX. 

No  Widow  shall  be  destein'd  to  marry  herself,  so  long  as  she  has  a  mind  to  live 
without  a  Husband;  But,  yet  she  shall  give  Security  that  she  will  not  marry 
without  our  Assent,  if  she  holds  of  Us;  or  without  the  consent  of  the  Lord  of 
whom  she  holds,  if  she  holds  of  another. 

X. 

Neither  we  nor  our  Bailiffs  shall  seize  any  Land  or  Kent  for  an  Debt,  so  long  as 
there  shall  be  Chattels  of  the  Debtor's  upon  the  Premises  sufficient  to  pay  the  Debt, 
and  that  the  Debtor  be  ready  to  satisfy  it.  Nor  shall  Sureties  of  the  Debtor 
be  distrain' d,  so  long  as  the  principal  Debtor  be  sufficient  for  the  payment  of  the 
Debt. 

XI. 

And  if  the  principal  Debtor  fail  in  the  payment  of  the  Debt,  not  having  where 
withal  to  discharge  it,  or  will  not  discharge  it  when  he  is  able,  then  the  Sureties 
shall  answer  the  Debt,  and  if  they  will  they  shall  have  the  Lands  and  Rents  of  the 
Debtor,  until  they  shall  be  satisfied  for  the  Debt  which  they  paid  for  him  ;  unless 
the  principal  Debtor  can  show  himself  acquitted  thereof  against  the  said  Sureties. 

XII. 

If  any  one  have  borrow' d  anything  of  the  Jews,  more  <jr  less,  and  dies  before  the 


CRIMES   OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR  535 

Debt  be  satisfied,  there  shall  be  no  interest  paid  for  the  Debt,  so  long  as  the  Heir 
is  under  Age.  of  whatsoever  he  may  hold  ;  And  if  the  Debt  falls  into  our  hands 
we  \vill  take  only  the  Chaitle  mentioned  in  the  Charter  or  Instrument. 

XIII. 

If  any  one  shall  die  indebted  to  Jeios,  his  Wife  shall  have  her  Dower,  and  pay 
Nothing  of  that  Debt;  and  if  the  Deceased  left  Children  under  Age,  they  shall 
have  Necessaries  provided  for  them  according  to  the  Tenement  (or  Real  Estate)  of  the 
Deceas'd,  and  out  of  the  Residue  of  the  Debt  shall  be  paid  ;  saving  however  the 
Service  of  the  Lords.  In  like  manner  the  Debts  due  to  other  Persons  than  Jews 
shall  be  paid. 

XIV. 

T  will  not  impose  any  Scutage  or  Aid  in  our  Kingdom,  unless  by  the  Common 
Council  of  our  Kingdom,  except  to  redeem  our  Person,  and  to  makeour  Eldest  Son 
a  Knight,  and  once  to  Marry  our  Eldest  Daughter ;  and  for  this  there  shall  only  be 
paid  a  reasonable  Aid. 

XV. 

In  like  Manner  it  shall  be  concerning  the  Aids  of  the  City  of  London;  and  the 
City  of  London  shall  have  all  its  antient  Liberties  and  free  Customs,  as  well  by 
Land  as  by  Water. 

XVI. 

Furthermore,  we  will,  and  grant  that  all  other  Cities  and  Burroughs,  and  Towns 
and  Barons  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  and  all  other  Ports,  shall  have  all  their  Liberties 
and  free  Customs  j  and  shall  have  the  Common  Council  of  the  Kingdom  concern 
ing  the  Assessment  of  their  Aids,  except  in  the  three  Cases  aforesaid. 

XVII. 

And  for  the  assessing  of  Scutages  we  shall  cause  to  be  summon' d  the  Archbishops, 
Bishops,  Abbotts,  Earls,  and  Great  Barons  of  the  Realm  singly  by  our  Letters. 

XVIII. 

And  furthermore,  we  shall  cause  to  be  summoned  in  general  by  our  Sheriffs,  and 
Bailiffs,  all  others  who  hold  of  us  in  Chief,  at  a  certain  Day,  that  is  to  say,  Forty 
Days  (before  their  Meeting]  at  least,  to  a  certain  Place,  arid  in  all  Letters  of  such 
Summons  we  will  declare  the  Cause  of  the  Summons. 

XIX. 

And  Summons  being  thus  made,  the  Business  shall  proceed  on  the  Day  appoint 
ed,  according  to  the  Advice  of  such  as  shall  be  present,  altho'  all  that  were  Sum 
moned  come  not. 

XX. 

We  will  not  for  the  future  grant  to  any  one,  that  he  may  take  Aid  of  his  own 
Free  Tenents,  unless  to  redeem  his  Body,  and  to  make  his  Eldest  Son  a  Knight, 
and  once  to  Marry  his  Eldest  Daughter ;  arid  for  this  there  shall  only  be  paid  a 
reasonable  Aid. 

XXI. 

No  Man  shall  be  distrein'd  to  perform  more  Service  for  a  Knight's  Fee  or  other 
Free  Tenement  than  is  due  from  thence. 

XXII. 

Common  Pleas  shall  not  follow  our  Court,  but  shall  be  holden  in  some  certain 
Place  :  Tryals  upon  the  Writs  of  Novel  Disseision  and  of  Mont  d'  Ancestor  and  of 
Darreine  Presentment  shall  be  taken  but  in  their  proper  Counties  and  after  this 
Manner:  We,  or  (if  We  shall  be  out  of  the  Realm)  our  Chief  Justiciary,  shall 
send  our  Justiciaries  through  every  County  by  turns  yearly,  who  with  the  Knights 
of  the  Shires,  shall  hold  the  said  Assizes  in  the  Counties. 


53G  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

XXIII. 

And  those  Matters,  which  at  the  coming  of  the  Justiciaries  so  sent  into  the 
Counties  to  hold  the  said  Assizes,  cannot  be  determined  in  any  other  Place  in  their 
Circuits:  And  those  things  which  by  reason  of  the  Difficulty  of  the  Articles,  can 
not  be  determined  by  those  Justiciaries,  shall  be  referred  to  our  Justiciaries  of  the 
Bench. 

XXIV. 

Assizes  of  Darreine  Presentment  to  Churches  shall  be  always  taken  before  the 
Judiciaries  of  the  Bench. 

XXV. 

A  Free  Man  shall  not  be  Amerced  for  a  small  Fault,  but  according  to  the  Man 
ner  of  the  Fault,  and  for  a  great  Crime,  in  Proportion  to  the  Heinousness  of  it, 
Saving  to  him  his  Contentment,  and  after  the  same  Manner  a  Merchant  Saving  to  him 
his  Merchandize. 

XXVI. 

And  a  Villain  of  any  other  than  our  own,  shall  be  amerced  after  the  same  Man 
ner,  saving  to  him  his  Wainage,  if  he  fall  under  our  Mercy ;  and  none  of  the  afore 
said  Amerciaments  shall  be  assessed  but  by  the  Bath  of  honest  and  lawful  Men  of 
the  Neighborhood  of  the  County. 

XXVII. 

Earls  and  Barons  shall  not  be  amerced  but  by  their  Peers,  and  according  to  the 
Quality  of  the  Offence. 

XXVIII. 

No  Ecclesiastical  Person  shall  be  amerced  in  Proportion  to  his  Benefice,  but  ac 
cording  to  his  Loy  Tennement  and  the  Greatness  of  his  Offence. 

XXIX. 

Neither  a  Pown,  nor  an  Penson  shall  be  distrein'd  to  make  Bridges  over  Rivers, 
unless  that  antiently  and  of  Right  they  are  bound  to  do  it. 

XXX. 

No  River  for  the  future  shall  be  imbanked,  but  what  was  imbanked  in  time  of 
King  Henry,  our  Grandfather. 

XXXI. 

No  Sheriff,  Constable*  Coroner  or  other  our  Bailiffs,  shall  hold  Pleas  of  the 
Crown. 

XXXII. 

All  Counties,  Hundreds,  Wapentakes  and  Ty things,  shall  stand  at  the  old  Farm, 
without  any  Increase,  except  in  our  Demesne  Lands. 

XXXIII. 

If  any  one,  that  holds  of  us  a  Loy  Fee  dies,  and  the  Sheriff  or  our  Bailiff  shows 
our  Letters  and  Patents  of  Summons  concerning  the  Debt  due  to  us  from  the  De 
ceased,  it  shall  be  lawful  for  the  Sheriff  or  our  Bailiff  io  Attach  and  Register  the 
Chattels  of  the  Deceased  found  upon  his  Loy  Fee,  to  the  Value  of  the  Debt,  by  the 
View  of  Lawful  Men,  so  as  nothing  be  removed  until  our  whole  Debt  be  paid  ;  and 
the  Rest  shall  be  left  to  the  Executors  to  fulfill  the  Will  of  the  Deceased ;  and  if 
there  be  Nothing  due  from  him  to  Us,  all  the  Chatties  shall  remain  to  the  Deceased, 
saving  to  his  Wife  and  Children  their  reasonable  Shares. 

XXXIV. 

If  any  Freeman  dies  Intestate,  his  Chattels  shall  be  distributed  by  the  Hand  of 
his  nearest  Relations  and  Friends  by  View  of  the  Church,  saving  to  every  one  his 
Debts,  which  the  Deceased  owed. 

XXXV. 

No  Constable  or  Bailiff  of  ours  shall  tail  j  Corn  or  other  Chattels  of  any  Man  who 


CRIMES   OP   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  537 

is  not  of  the  Town  where  the  Castle  is,  unless  he  presently  gives  him  money  for  it, 
or  hath  respite  of  Payment  from  the  Seller  :  But  if  he  be  of  the  same  Town,  he 
shall  pay  him  within  Forty  Days. 

XXXVI. 

^  No  Constable  shall  distrein  any  Knight  to  give  Money  for  Castle  Guard,  if  he 
himself  will  do  it  in  his  own  Person,  or  by  another  able  Man,  in  case  he  shall  be 
hindered  by  any  reasonable  Cause. 

XXXVII. 

And  if  We  shall  lead  him,  or  if  We  shall  send  him  into  the  Army,  he  shall  be 
free  from  Castle  Guard,  for  the  time  he  shall  be  in  the  Army,  by  one  Command, 
for  the  Fee  for  which  he  did  Service  in  the  Army. 

XXXVIII. 

No  Sheriff  or  Bailiff  of  ours  or  any  other,  shall  take  Horses  or  Carts  of  any  one 
for  Carriage  without  paying  according  to  the  Rate  antiently  appointed  ;  that  is  to 
say,  for  a  Cart  and  two  Horses  Ten  Pence  a  Day  ;  and  for  a  Cart  with  three  Horses 
Fourteen  Pence  a  Day. 

XXXIX. 

No  Demesne  Cart  of  any  Ecclesiastical  Person,  or  Knight,  or  any  Lady,  shall  be 
taken  by  our  Officers  ;  neither  shall  We  or  our  Officers  or  others,  take  any  Mans 
Timber  for  our  Castles,  or  other  Uses,  unless  by  the  consent  of  the  owner  of  the 
Timber. 

XL. 

We  will  retain  the  Land  of  those  that  are  convicted  of  Felony  but  one  Year  and  a 
Day,  and  then  they  shall  be  delivered  to  the  Lord  of  the  Fee. 

XLI. 

All  Wares  for  the  time  to  come  shall  be  demolished  in  the  River  of  Thames  and 
Madevay,  and  throughout  all  England,  except  upon  tha  Sea-Coast. 

XLII. 

The  Writ  which  is  called  Precipe,  for  the  future  shall  not  be  granted  to  any  one 
of  any  Tenement,  whereby  a  Free-Man  may  loose  his  Cause. 

XLIII. 

There  shall  be  one  Measure  of  Wrine  and  one  of  the  Ale  through  our  whole 
Realm,  and  one  Measure  of  Corn ;  that  is  to  say,  the  London  Quarter,  and  one 
Breadth  of  dyed  Cloth  and  Russets  and  Haberjects;  that  is  to  say,  Two  Ells  within 
the  Lists  ;  and  the  Weight  shall  be  as  the  Measures. 

XLIV. 

From  henceforward  Nothing  shall  be  given  or  taken  for  a  Writ  of  Inquisition, 
from  him  that  desires  an  Inquisition  of  Life  or  Limbs,  but  shall  be  granted  gratis 
and  not  denied. 

XLV. 

If  any  one  holds  of  us  by  Fee  Farm,  or  Soccage,  or  Burgage,  and  holds  Lands  of 
another  by  Military  Service,  We  will  not  have  the  Wardship  of  the  Heir  or  Land, 
which  belongs  to  another  Man'  sFee,  by  reason  of  what  he  holds  of  us  by  Fee  Farm, 
Soccage  or  Burgage:  Nor  will  we  have  the  Wardship  of  the  Fee-Farm,  Soccage,  or 
JBurgage,  unless  the  Fee-Farm  is  bound  to  perform  Military  Service. 

XLVI. 

'•>  will  not  have  the  Wardship  of  an  Heir,  nor  of  any  Land,  what  he  holds  of 
-  by  Military  Service,  by  reason  of  any  Petit  Serganty  he  holds  of  us,  as  by 
-  of  giving  us  Daggers,  Arrows  or  the  like. 


538  CRIMES   OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR. 

XL  VII. 

No  Buliff  for  the  future  shall  put  any  Man  to  his  Law,  Nor  to  an  oath,  upon 
his  Single  Accusation,  without  credible  Witnesses  produced  to  prove  it. 

XLVIII. 

No  Freeman  shall  be  taken,  or  imprisoned  or  disseis'd  of  his  Free-hold  or  Liber 
ties,  or  Free-Customs,  or  Outlaw' d,  or  Banish' d,  or  any  way  Destroy' d  ;  nor  will 
we  pass  upon  him,  or  commit  him  to  Prison,  unless  by  the  legal  Judgment  of  his 
Peers,  or  by  the  Law  of  the  Land. 

XLIX. 

We  will  sell  to  no  Man,  we  will  deny  no  Man,  nor  defer  Riylit  nor  Justice. 

L. 

All  Merchants,  unless  they  be  publickly  prohibited,  shall  have  safe  and  secure 
Conduct  to  go  out  of,  and  come  into  England;  and  to  stay  there,  and  to  pass  as 
well  by  Land  as  by  Water,  to  buy  and  sell  by  the  antient  and  allow' d  Customs, 
without  any  evil  Tolls,  except  in  time  of  AVar,  or  when  they  shall  be  of  any  Nation 
at  War  with  us. 

LI. 

And  if  there  shall  be  found  any  such  in  our  Land  in  the  beginning  of  a  War 
they  shall  be  attached,  without  damage  to  their  Bodies  or  Goods,  until  it  may  be 
known  unto  us,  or  our  Chief  Justiciary  how  our  Merchants  be  treated  in  the  Na 
tion  at  War  with  us ;  and  if  ours  be  safe  there,  they  shall  be  safe  in  our  Land. 

LIT. 

It  shall  be  lawful  for  the  Time  to  come,  for  any  one  to  go  out  of  our  Kingdom, 
and  return  safely  or  securely  by  Land  or  by  WTater,  saving  his  Allegiance  to  us  ; 
unless  in  time  of  War  by  some  short  space  for  the  common  Benefit  of  the  Kingdom, 
except  Prisoners  and  Out-laws  (according  to  the  Law  of  the  Land)  and  people  in 
AVar  with  us,  and  Merchants  who  shall  be  in  such  Condition  as  is  above  men 
tioned. 

Lin. 

If  any  Man  holds  of  any  Escheat,  as  of  the  Honour  of  Wallingford,  Loloque,  Lan 
caster,  Nottingham,  or  of  other  Escheats,  which  are  in  our  hands,  and  are  Baronies, 
and  dies,  his  Heir  shall  not  give  any  other  Relief  or  perform  any  other  Service  to 
us  than  he  would  to  the  Baron ;  if  the  Barony  were  in  possession  of  the  Barony, 
we  will  hold  it  after  the  same  manner  the  Baron  held  it ;  nor  will  we  by  reason  of 
such  Birony  or  Escheat,  have  any  Escheat  or  Wardship,  of  any  of  our  men,  unless 
he  that  held  the  Barony  or  Escheat,  held  of  us  in  Chief  elsewhere. 

LIV. 

Those  Men  who  dwell  without  the  Forest,  from  henceforth  shall  not  come  be  fore 
our  Justiciaries  of  the  Forest  upon  Summons,  but  such  as  are  impleaded,  or  are 
Pledges  for  and  that  were  attach'  d  for  something  concerning  the  Forest. 

LV. 

All  AA'oods  that  were  taken  into  the  Forest  by  King  Richard  our  Brother,  shall 
forthwith  be  laid  out  again,  unless  they  were  our  Demesne  Woods. 

LVI. 

No  Freeman  for  the  future  shall  give  or  sell  any  more  of  his  Lands,  but  so  that 
out  of  the  Residue,  \\\Q  Service  due  to  the  Lord  of  the -Fee  may  be  sufficiently  per 
formed. 

LVII. 

All  Patrons  of  Abbies,  who  have  Charter  of  the  Kings  of  England  of  the  Ad- 
vowson,  or  have  it  by  any  antient  Tenure  or  Possession,  may  have  the  Custod" 
of  them  when  void,  as  they  ought  to  have,  and  as  was  declared  before. 


CRIMES    OF   THE   CIVIL   WAR.  539 

LYIII. 

No  Man  shall  be  taken  or  imprison' d  upon  the  Appeal  of  a  Woman  for  the 
Death  of  any  other  Man  than  her  husband. 

LIX. 

No  County  Court  for  the  future  shall  be  holden  but  from  month  to  month  ;  and 
where  there  used  to  be  a  greater  Interval  let  it  be  so  continued. 

LX. 

Neither  any  Sheriff  nor  his  Bailiff  shall  keep  his  Turn  on  the  Hundred  oft'ner 
than  twice  in  a  Year  and  only  in  the  accustomed  Place ;  that  is,  once  after  Easter, 
and  once  after  Michaelmas ;  and  the  view  of  the  Frank  Pledge  shall  be  held  after 
Michalmas,  without  Occasion,  and  so  that  every  one  shall  have  his  Liberties,  which 
he  had  and  was  wont  to  have  in  the  Time  of  King  Henry  our  Grandfather,  or  such 
as  he  obtained  afterwards. 

LXI. 

But  the  View  of  Frank-Pledge  shall  be  so  made,  that  our  Peace  may  be  kept, 
and  that  the  Tything  be  full,  as  it  wont  to  be. 

LXII. 

And  the  Sheriffs  shall  not  seek  Occasions,  bnt  shall  be  content  with  what  the 
Sheriff  was  wont  to  have  for  making  his  View  in  the  Time  of  King  Henry  our 
Grandfather. 

LXIII. 

For  the  time  to  come,  it  shall  not  be  lawful  for  any  Man  to  give  his  Land  to  a 
Religious  House,  so  as  to  take  it  again,  and  hold  it  of  that  House. 

LXIV. 

Nor  shall  it  be  lawful  for  any  Religious  House  to  receive  Land,  so  as  to  grant  it 
to  him  again  of  whom  they  received  it,  to  hold  of  him.  If  any  Man  for  the  future 
shall  so  give  his  land  to  a  Religious  House,  and  be  convicted  thereof,  his  gift  shall 
be  void,  and  the  Land  shall  be  forfeited  to  the  Lord  of  the  Fee. 

LXV. 

Scutage  for  the  future  shall  not  be  taken  as  it  was  used  to  be  taken  in  the  Time 
of  King  Henry  our  Grandfather ;  and  that  the  Sheriff  shall  oppress  no  Man,  but 
be  content  with  what  he  was  wont  to  have. 

LXVI. 

All  the  aforesaid  Customs  and  Liberties,  which  we  have  granted  to  be  holden  in 
our  Realm,  as  much  as  belongs  to  us,  towards  all  our  Men  of  our  Kingdom  we 
will  observe.  And  all  Men  of  this  our  Kingdom,  as  well  as  Clerks  as  Laicks  shall 
observe  the  same,  as  much  as  belongs  to  them  towards  their  men. 

LXVII. 

Saving  to  the  Archbishops,  Bishops,  Abbotts,  Priors,  Templars,  Hospitallers,  Earls 
Barons,  Knights,  and  all  others,  as  well  ecclesiasticks  as  Seculars,  the  Liberties  and 
free  Customs  which  they  had  before  :  These  being  witnesses,  $c. 


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